Tenth Muse goes calendar shopping...

...I like speaking of myself in the third person, especially when that third person is a pseudonym and an alter ego...but I digress...

Like the procrastinator that I am, I'm finally getting around to buying myself a 2008 calendar. I really need one for the office so that I can count weeks and prepare my schedules. For the past three years I've bought an "Ancient Greece" calendar. These calendars had beautiful pictures of some of the ancient sites throughout Greece. For some reason, they don't have a 2008 Ancient Greece calendar. They probably stopped making it because I was probably the only person in this entire world who got excited about such a calendar. They have other Greece calendars and you can count on having at least one of the months having a photo of the Parthenon. But most of the other images are quite "touristy." You'll see super white buildings with super blue roofs. You'll see a chair and an umbrella on a sandy beach. Who cares about the stupid umbrellas on beaches? I want the Parthenon! I want the Porch of the Kores! I want the Temple of Hera! I want the Palace of Knossos! Stupid umbrellas on beaches. Who cares about them? Since they don't have my Ancient Greece calendar, I have to find something else. Even though I'm a Hellenist (a Greek specialist), I might be forced to buy a calendar about Rome. At least they have photos of some statues and some old concrete buildings. Or I might have to lower myself to the level of the rest of the Plebs of the world and buy a "normal" calendar...

Each year I also usually buy a little desk calendar. This is usually one of those page-a-day calendars, and the one I buy has a Latin word or phrase for the day. Yes, I'm a geek! I'm having a hard time finding these, too, mostly because they're out of stock. Really? How many people in the world need a Latin page-a-day calendar? So, I do searches in those little search boxes. Enter phrase: Latin calendar. The results usually bring up wall calendars, and I get a number of things that I'm not exactly looking for. Hot Latin Bods of 2008, complete with lots of pictures of sweaty pecs and six-pack abs. Or I get Lovely Latin Ladies of 2008, complete with lots of thong and butt shots. Neither is appealing to me, and certainly neither is appropriate for work! So now I'm still searching for some kind of geeky desk calendar that is more suited to my natural geekiness.

Sigh, it's tough being a geek...

Plato Rocks!

Plato's cave...Plato rocks! Get it? Ha...Haha...Classics humor. Either way, I must buy this shirt...

Once an Editor...

Since I'm a big bad editor, or at least that's what I tell people, my friends often ask me if I critique and edit everything I hear, see, and read. Yes, I have to admit, I do. I cringe when I hear people speak incorrectly, my biggest pet peeve being when someone says "between X person and I." That's just wrong, people. You see grammatical errors everywhere. You'll find them in advertisements, newspaper headlines, fliers, restaurant menus, etc., and I'll notice them. Granted, I'm not perfect. I'm sure I've had more than my fair share of grammatical slips, and I'm sure I've dangled more than a few participles here and there. Naturally I like to blame these slips on working or typing too fast. I sometimes blame it on the wine or whatever I'm drinking at the time.

Where am I going with all of this??

Oh, the reason why I'm writing this post is because I was struck by something this afternoon. I noticed that whenever my beautiful friend and I send text messages to each other we both use complete sentences and proper grammar. She's also an editor. You'll never see any of the abbreviated language between us.

Okay, this is a random post and slightly disjointed. I'm not drinking yet, but I will probably have a beer soon. I'm just trying to think, type, and eat waffles at the same time. Yes, I'm eating waffles and two little sausage links for dinner. I love having breakfast for dinner occasionally.

Ummm, okay, I'm being random. And I'm a dork.

More Bad Use of Greek

I opened the Friday, September 21, "Screen" section of the Denver Post and nearly went through the roof when I saw this:
Once again, we have a display of very bad use of Greek. I know that the Greek alphabet is very cool, but, COME ON, people! Do NOT use it just because it looks cool. Why? Because to people who can actually read Greek, you only look STUPID! This ad, or whatever you want to call it, is part of a review for the movie Eastern Promises. I assume it is supposed to say "diary of violence." But if you transliterate it, it reads, "diarg sf nisleece." Who were the IDIOTS who actually came up with this idea?! How is it that you people even have jobs?! And don't you have supervisors or language consultants who check and verify your work?! MORONS! You should all be fired and kicked to the street! ARGH!

YES, I'M ANGRY, AND YES I'M SHOUTING!!!

Leave the Sigmas at Home!

I think I've written a post about this before, but I just have to write about it again. I must repeat how much I hate it when people use Greek sigmas (Σ) to represent the letter E. People do it all the time in advertising. They use sigmas in movie posters, store signs, business names, you name it. There is a new show on ABC Family called "Greek," and, yes, they are falling into the sigma trap.

Σ does not equal E!! Yes, the Greek lettering might look cool, but it is WRONG! It's WRONG and it's STUPID! And any advertising executive or creative "genius" who comes up with this should be fired! They should be fired and forced to take a real Greek class! IDIOTS...

Current mood: disgruntled
Current music: Holly Brook. Like Blood, Like Honey
Current drink: Barq's Root Beer

Greek in Blog Posts! Yay!!

I found a cool little tool online that will code Greek text for me. I'm not sure how this will look on every browser. Some people who have used this before said that it might cause problems with some versions of Internet Explorer. It looks good in Firefox (which is what I use) and it looked fine in IE 7.0. If it looks strange or if you see strange code, then you know why. I am so excited! This is cool! Now I can write all kinds of messages in Greek, and no one (except those who can read Greek) will know what I'm saying. Oh, I can only imagine the fun I can have with secretly torturing and teasing the masses of ὅι πολλοὶ (hoi polloi). Muwahahahaha....

Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὅς μάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίς ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε·