Christmas Time is Here

Christmas Cliche

This will probably be my last post before we head out of town for a week.

So, here's a topic:

"Is anyone tired of the phrase 'the real meaning of christmas'?"

Talk amongst yourselves.

I haven't worn long-underwear once this winter...

News

I guess I just feel like a should write SOMETHING...

Right now, Dasha and I are living in the apartment of MTW-Ukraine-head-honcho HUBERS! While the parents are away, we are 'babysitting' the three kids (Tim - senior in hight school, Dani - sophomore and Nate 5th grade).

Tomorrow we'll be picking Anna up from the airport...

Dasha had a fairly successful job interview for an editor post at Ukraine's equivalent of People magazine...

And I'm just plugging away as usual....

The Hobbit

Well, the news is out... New Line cinema has apparently dumped Peter Jackson from their Hobbit project. In Peter Jackson's words: "We got to go there - but not back again ..."

In honor of getting him BACK on, I've added a "Save the Hobbit" banner to my blog. Click it to find out what YOU can do for the cause!

(P.S. I wetn to theonering.net web-site today... woh. What a flashback! I used to visit that web-site every day!)

UPDATE!:

As Lord of the Rings fans mounted a protest following word that New Line had dropped Peter Jackson from consideration as director of The Hobbit and another Lord of the Rings prequel, producer Saul Zaentz has given assurances that Jackson will indeed direct the two films. A German website, Elbenwald.de, posted an interview with Zaentz, who acquired the rights to the works of the late Rings writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, in 1976 (the Saul Zaentz Company owns Tolkien Enterprises), in which Zaentz says, "It will definitely be shot by Peter Jackson. ... Next year The Hobbit rights will fall back to my company. I suppose that Peter will wait because he knows that he will make the best deal with us. And he is fed up with the studios: to get his profit share on the Rings trilogy he had to sue New Line. With us, in contrast, he knows that he will be paid fairly and artistically supported without reservation." (The preceding quotation is a translation that appeared on TheHobbit-Movie.com from the German interview posted on Elbenwald.de.)

I knew that little banner would help!

Breakfast at the MTW Office in Kyiv

Lost In Translation or Babel Fish

Here is an interesting look at how easily things are lost in translation... I took the following text from a box of Lipton Yellow Label Tea. This text is written on the box in English and Russian... here is how Babel fish translated it for me:

Orginal English: "Hand picked close the the bud for best quality tea and finest taste"

Babel Fish translation of russian text: "the refined refreshing taste, which stores in itself the natural perfection of the upper leaflets of the highest quality, assembled by hand"

Orginal english text translated to russian and back: "Hand selected its close to bud for the best tea of quality and majorities of the precise taste"

Original russian text translated to english to korean to english to greek to french to dutch to english: "With in the natural enemy above the brochure of quality he unites of the hand which the wall Yan of institutions the preference which puts on so that he is by living making is cleaned,"

I think the biggist mystery is how that comma got added on to the end...

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

Pictures taken from our balcony (Dasha)

HA!

Uncle Wilbur

This is part of an e-mail I just got from Great Aunt Wanda and Uncle Wilbur (their last name is Woolard... all "W's"). They are my grandmother's sister and brother-in-law:

"this past month I [Wilbur] have bushhogged the three pasture fields, started to chain saw some firewood, we bailed 1400 bales of hay in August, and I have already sold 565 bales....and as soon as possible, a guy is going to pick up another 200 bales.....and we (I) shoveled 50 bushels of ear corn into the crib, for the food for the horses for this winter....along with hay, naturally. So, it has been a busy fall. Not looking forward to winter, though.....comes too soon. Oh, and I had a 75th birthday in October..."

WOW! I don't even get that much work done at 21 years old! That's what the Marine Corp does to a person, I guess. (If you ever ask him "So you were a marine?" he'll answer "I still am!")

Here's to Aunt Wanda and Uncle Wilbur!

Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.

Lev Trotsky

Are they twins?

It was worth 40 bucks...

Love this picture...

Sorry, Jared

I couldn't resist...

Genesis

Dasha's Blog = updated (link is to the right)

The World Cup

Right after the world cup, I said that I would post something when I figured out what I thought about what happened in the final (run on sentence).

I still haven't figured it out... but the French and Italian fans have... the first one is what the frence believe happened:





But this is how the Italians saw it:

Dasha and I are about to finish season 2...

Jared's Blog

I think that everyone from Salisbury that visits my blog probably has an idea of the condition of Jared's blog.

I would like to hold a vote... right here in the comments of this post. Here's the question:

If Jared does not post again in the next week, does he deserve to stay in our lists of links?

We shall see...

Coming Soon

Dasha's Genesis House Blog...



Check it out.