Talking to thin air

So, I just watched the Burn Notice season 4 finale, and, wow. I actually liked the new girl, Rebecca (?), who ended up being a plant for Anson. It was nice that she wasn't completely useless, though it might have been better if she hadn't ended up double-crossing them. I can't believe that Michael would actually do what Anson wanted, at the beginning, when he asked Michael to burn four other people. It might be a little more believable if he hadn't already burned Jesse by accident, and spent an entire season trying to undo that. I just have trouble believing that Michael's devotion to Fi is all of a sudden so strong that he's willing to do something that horrible. I'm glad that Fi finally took matters into her own hand and stopped doing everything Michael said, and I confess I am a little excited to see how she does in prison. Though, they might send her somewhere like Guantanamo that would be a little less exciting; but I can totally see Fi having the entire prison wrapped around her little finger after a week. And then, a week later, she breaks out.

Also, I watched Merlin, and—OH MY GOD ARTHUR IS FINALLY GOING TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH. I accidentally heard a tiny bit of the prequel for the next episode, and I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!! I knew it had to happen by the end of this season, though I wish I still got to anticipate the moment in the next episode. Arthur was awesome in his hypnotized state, though I didn't really like his conscious attempt at being a "simpleton."

Also, next weekend is going to be SO FREAKING AWESOME, because there will be Merlin AND DOCTOR WHO!!!!!!!!

Now, back to Bulgarian. I just discovered that LaTeX does IPA, so my life just got a lot easier.

Okay, so I am probably a little bit too excited about this, but ... I was playing Dominion, using the name Emrys (surprise surprise!), when my opponent asked if I happened to be Sai, a person by the full name of Sai, now, but who used to be known as Sai Emrys. Anyway, so I said that no, I was not Sai; but I recognized the name Sai Emrys, could that possibly be the person on the con lang listserv? And so my opponent said that yes, it was; he knew Sai because of his work on Lojban. So I asked him about his work with Lojban, and he said he used to be President of the Board of the LLG (Logical Language Group) for a few years.

I was more than a little shocked, to say the least. But it was cool! Exciting!

And if I ever change my name, Emrys is so totally my top candidate.

Warning: much ranting and linguistic nerdiness to follow.

Ranting: ( The internet is not as useful for travel plans as you might think. )

Linguistic nerdiness: Although this is potentially not really PC, there was a sign outside the station that said "Ah & Ah: For out-of-towners, that's R & R." It was advertising "upperclass" travel to London, I believe; but it was pretty funny. Of course, the vowels aren't quite right, but most people reading that probably wouldn't think of that. The Boston non-rhotic dialect(s) has (have) a slightly different vowel than the British non-rhotic dialects, so I think it was trying to play off of the superficial similarity (as the sign was in Boston). It would be more interesting to see if the sign occurred elsewhere where there is no local non-rhotic dialect—maybe they were trying to make fun of and/or imitate both the Boston non-rhotic and the London non-rhotics. Anyway, it was entertaining and thought provoking.

( The great geek vs. nerd debate. )

I am now lamentably finished with the second season of Merlin.  I say lamentably only because 1) there is only one more season to go, and 2) I really ought to have been doing homework instead of watching 26 45-minute episodes of a TV show about magic and dragons.  I most definitely like British science fiction / fantasy TV a lot better than American sci fi/fantasy, but luckily I think I've started to exhaust the typical British canon, especially since I have tried Torchwood and don't like it.