Beowabbit

Mediaeval word puzzles, courtesy of Retronaut. I can’t quite tell whether they’re actually puzzles of some sort or just passages written in a grid like Seek-and-Find. They’re not that; they’re legible Latin left-to-right, but I suspect there’s something deeper hidden in the layout. (The phrasing seems a little odd, and the lack of spaces — the letterforms are clearly from a time when spaces would have been used — and features like the consistent use of Q alone for QU suggest some kind of puzzle.) The site where I found them doesn’t have much information; anybody whose Latin (or patience) is better than mine want to take a guess at what the puzzle is?

(This is a little more retro than Retronaut’s usual fare, but they have some interesting stuff.)

Well, OK, the photo itself is very mildly funny anyway, but the sign in the photo is only funny if you know Russian and are kind of geeky about it.

( photo of an “uninvited guest” found via lj.ru’s photoblog )

So here’s a little more detail about the fabulous weekend I’ve just had:

On Friday (into Saturday), I had a particularly lovely date with cathijosephine. ( Read more... )

Then on Saturday, after I dealt with a minor problem on my Mac, we got dressed and went to the Flea (the Fetish Fair Fleamarket, which usually happens twice a year). ( Read more... )

Saturday evening,cathijosephine and I went out to dinner at Sol, the wonderful Brazilian buffet near her place, with xmelancholia, her husband, and their housemate, and thence to a fabulous and wonderful birthday party, with a spy theme. ( Read more... ) It was really nice to get the time with xmelancholia, and especially nice to finally meet her husband, who is a sweetie.

On Sunday, I availed myself of the buffet cathijosephine and I had discovered in the mall, did a little bit of window-shopping, and then came home and did some cleaning. I didn’t accomplish nearly as much as I’d hoped to, but I’m a bit less likely to trip over things in my office than I was before.

And today, I made my first trip of the summer to Canobie Lake Park, an amusement park in southern New Hampshire, with eisa and maeveenroute. We had a great time. ( Read more... ) On my way to the car after ice cream, I had a great phone call with my mother. When I got home, I got to chat a bit with docorion, who had a highly productive weekend around the house, and now it’s almost time for me to go to bed.
Sorry about the length — it’s been a very full weekend!

What is it with me and weird dreams? I almost never remember my dreams these days, and now I remember dreams two days in a row. Unlike the previous one, this one (while weird) isn’t going to be that interesting to anybody but me.

I dreamt about an amazing college Russian textbook, with things like samples of written Russian throughout history, and sidebars comparing Russian with other Slavic languages, and sections on specialized forms of Russian like legal language and newspaper writing. And it was printed in full colour, with lots of photographs and interesting design elements.

Maybe my subconscious needs to get out more, but I really wish that book were real.

(This was actually only the tail end of another dream, but I don’t remember the rest of it, alas.)

OK, this is not really going to be entertaining to anybody but me, but I picked up a box of juice off the shelf at a Store 24 near my house on the way home tonight, and noticed that it had another language on the other side. And I noticed it was in Cyrillic. And I noticed it was not Russian, but Bulgarian. Not a language I’m used to seeing in a random convenience store.

( Tangerine Carrot Lemon & Apple Premium Juice )