Pete's Ancient and rarely updated
D-land Journal

Fuzzy crystals of mostly water...

Journal Entry entered: 2000-11-18 - 01:28:45

I thought about talking a bit about the fine election recently witnessed in New Rome... er, the US. I wonder, does Gore play the fiddle? He's beginning to remind me a bit of Nero. Anyway, I could go on a long schpeil about this whole thing, but there's no point. It's a slow motion atomic explosion and it's not going to stop until it totally destroys everything in its wake.

So, instead I'll talk about a safe topic... the weather.

I am starting to feel a bit homesick. It happens every year at about this time. The snow begins to fall, the clouds cover the peculiar colour of your sky, the trees and leaves begin looking vaguely like our own... it makes me wistful for the islands of home.

I come from a world quite far from your own. You can see the sun my world orbits from this hemisphere of your world (Northern) in the fall and winter sky. Your name for the star is Betelgeuse, it's a red giant star with a brown dwarf companion and six planets. Three of the planets are gas giants, and the largest of these has 13 moons, including three that are exceptionally large. One of these moons is a fertile, living world upon which we live.

Being a red giant means it burns more slowly and with less heat, and also that the colour quality of the light is a bit different. There is less blue light in the light from T'ssoryn (the proper name for the star) which means our sky is a different colour (since it is the scattering of blue lightwaves that cases the bright blue look of your sky). Our sky has more of a greenish cast and is generally a bit darker. This will explain to those who know me why I seldom am without sunglasses... it's too damn bright here!

Our vegetation uses different chromaphyls than yours, so the trees here in fall look more like the summertime trees of Khorwhynn III. The awesome reds and golds and greens remind me of the Khryosi�n Archipelago and the beaches of blue sand... mmm...

Oh yes, our world is largely ocean world. The tidal influences of the parent star, it's dark twin, and our parent planet, Khorwhynn, leave very few parts of the world permanently above water. The safest place to be is on the water's surface or under it. So we build floating cities whose spires reach both to the heavens in the skies and the depths of the ocean itself.

Because our world is orbiting a cooler sun than yours, we have shorter summers and longer winters. Yes, that's why I seem comfortable in the fall, winter, and spring but not in the summer. I think I do pretty well not to melt into a puddle each time the bloody temperature gets above ... um... 20 degrees centigrade? Something like 75 on that 'F' scale some of you use? There's a reason I live where I do... about as far north as I can live and still have access to technology and civilisation.

"Why not in Canada or Alaska?" I hear some of you thinking to yourselves. Well, the technology part excludes Alaska and the civilised part excludes "joost aboot every part of Canada, yah der hey?" The same rule that applies to Canada applies to Minnesota and points farther west, as well. Well... at least, until you reach the domain of the Evil One in Redmond.

Anyway, this part of your little planet was quite lovely for the last few weeks and feels even more homelike now that the temperatures are finally getting decent. I certainly can't wait for the first real fall of snow! I'm sure you all feel quite the same!

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Warren's list of words that monkeys use to annoy him by misspelling, misusing, or mispronouncing them (the list will most assuredly grow)

Misspellings

COMING (typically mispelled "comming")
TONGUE (typically mispelled "tounge")

Confused spellings

HERE vs. HEAR (the former is a place word; the latter is what you do when a sound hits your ear)
IT'S vs. ITS (the former is a contracted form of IT IS; the latter is a possessive form of the impersonal pronoun IT)
LOSING vs. LOOSING (the former is what you are doing if you are not winning; the latter is what you are doing when you let the lions out of the lion pen at the zoo, you are "loosing them" or "setting them loose").
POUR vs. PORE vs. POOR (the first is what you do to get milk from the carton into the glass; the second is a small opening in a surface, such as those in your skin that sweat comes out of (... don't write poetry if you don't know your English, you just look sad). The third, a state of having little or no money, is rarely confused with the other two).
ROGUE vs. ROUGE (The former is a person who might also be described as a rascal, scoundrel or cad; the latter is make-up that one uses to add a bit of a blush to one's cheeks.)
THEY'RE vs. THEIR vs. THERE (the first is a contraction of THEY ARE; the next is a possessive form of THEY; the last denotes place or location)
TO vs. TOO vs. TWO (the first is a function word indicating movement, direction, proximity, intention, addition: "I'm going to the store" or "Add this to the pile" or "How close is the house to the road"; the second one sort of adds quantity, often of the excessive sort, to a concept: "Too many reptiles" or "I'm coming, too"; the last represents the number 2.)
WHERE vs. WEAR vs. -WARE vs. WERE- (the first references place or location; the second is either a verb, noun, or suffix relating to clothing or other adornments [example: wearing footwear] OR a noun or verb relating to the effect of exposure or useage or corrosion [wear and tear]; the third is a suffix that indicates that something is a class of some sort [hardware, software, flatware, wetware]; the fourth is a prefix used to attach the disease of Lycanthropy to a person or animal, i.e: werewolf, wererat, weretiger. Finally, although pronounced differently, "WERE" is also a past tense of are or to be.)
YOU'RE vs. YOUR vs. YORE (the former is a contraction of YOU ARE, the middle is a possessive form of YOU, and the latter is a reference to another, undefined era in the past: "Days of yore.)

Mispronunciations

ASK [ask'] ("axe" is something used for chopping wood or the action of chopping something with an axe).
CAN [kahn] (it should not be pronounced as [kehn]). Thanks, Ken.
CAVALRY [kah'-val-ree] ("Calvary" is a mountain that is prominant {pun intended} in the Bible, not a military unit that rides on horses... or these days on tanks and Hum-Vees).
DONDER [don'-der] ("Donner" was the name of a party of travellers that got stuck in the mountains and ate each other, not the name of one of Santa's eight little reindeer).
ESCAPE [es-kayp'] ("excape" simply sounds dumb).
ESPRESSO [es-pres'-oh] (it is NOT "eXpresso," pinheads. Thanks, Mischief.
HUNDRED [hun'-dred] (it's not "hun'-erd" nor "hun'-red"). Thanks, Rachel.
INSURANCE [in-sure'-ense] (it is NOT "in'-sure-ense"! In English, the second to last syllable is the one that gets the emphasis except when asking a question, when the LAST syllable is accented... never the third to last!!!)
JEWELRY [jew'-el-ree] (it's not "joo-lah-ree" or "joo-luh-ree", stoner!) Thanks, again Rachel.
LIBRARY [lie-brayr'-ee] (there's no such thing as a "lie-berry", people!)
NUCLEAR [new-klee'-er] ("nuke-yuh-ler" is incorrect, Homer! Same goes for you, Dubya!!!)
OFTEN [aw'-fen] (the pretentious will insist on saying "awf'-Ten" but that is an archaic form and no more appropriate than saying "thee" and "thou" in colloquial English)
RIPON [rih'-pin] (so very many people pronounce this "rih-pon' " or "ripe'-on" that it gets on the nerves of anyone who has ever lived or gone to school there! Thanks Rachel K.
VIOLA [vi-o'-la] (the musical instrument is pronounced "vee-ola" but the flower and the woman's name is pronounced with an "eye", not an "ee")Thanks, Viola.

Pete's Ancient and rarely updatedD-land Journal

Pete's Ancient and rarely updated
D-land Journal