This is the fourth time in the last year that I’ve informed you of a new phone number (the first was exactly a year ago). But keep this one well:
0435 079 945
For those overseas, it is:
+61 435 079 945
After a few days of indecision, I finally signed up for Virgin Mobile’s Bean Counter, which has good prices, although not as good as many cap plans in terms of flagfall and SMS. Its advantage is its flexibility: I have 45 days to use each $25 refill, which means I won’t have any problems if I go under. And I can have it refill automatically for me, which means I won’t have big problems if I go over… At least I have something to play with until I know a little more about my usage patterns.
Anyway, CALL ME!!
The first two things I was invited to when getting back to Sydney were farewell parties. I thought that was amusing, and I just wanted to advertise it.
I didn’t farewell my brother, but we probably crossed paths mid-air between Bangkok and Tel Aviv.
I am back. And there are lots of things I want to do in the coming months. And many of them aren’t listed here… (more…)
Yes, I am still in Montreal till April. I am here for a second semester, so if you happen to be visiting this side of the earth (and, for instance, your initials are JM) you should give me a call on
+1-514-659-4506
And don’t leave a voice message. I still can’t check them and even when Fido resets my access code it doesn’t work, and I’m waiting for them to get back to me…
I heard on the weekend about another couple getting engaged. Another (religious) couple with one partner from the yeargroup below me at my high school, Moriah. I had been commenting for a while that the difference between their grade and mine is drastic: as far as I know, while there is at least one in our year (class of 01) with a baby girl, there are none (or maybe one) who have been engaged or married. (more…)
There are two pieces of Australian media I’m keeping up with while away. One is Column 8. The other is those little snippets of The Chaser’s War on Everything posted weekly on the ABC web site. (more…)
Cheesecake is a regular feature of my birthday celebrations, which happen to coincide annually with Shavuot. I’m not generally a big fan of cheese, but when it comes to cheesecakes, I can get quite picky. My mum’s recipe — secretly shared with her mother and no other — makes the best birthday cake in town. Fluffy and lemony, its delicate surface adorns a crumbly shortbread base.
Some years ago, I struck up an argument with Tanya as to whose cheesecake recipe was better. With an ego that’s probably too big for my own good, I didn’t dare back down from my position.
Finally, some six years later, the Nothman jury is out after Tanya appeared at my place with a full-size yellow beast, nicely browned, with only one crack down the cheesy centre (we weren’t judging on style). (more…)
Welcome all to my new home on the web, and its obligatory blog. Of course, some will remember I wrote a few blog posts on my site in 2001. But in those days we called them “web logs”… or even by that stage one word: “weblog”. The geeks had the fashion first, and then the rest of the world joined them and made it sound cool when they circumcised it and named this honourable practice “to blog”.
Funny word, “blog”. It rhymes with all sorts of important slang words like “bog”, “grog”, “slog”, “snog”, even ”smog”- and then a bunch of animals: the dog, frog and hog. There is something in the texture of the word (in the back, round vowel, and the voiced consonants) that makes it sound—despite the frog—big, heavy, lumpy. And really, “blog” doesn’t fit to that pattern, but I think it’s too late to change that.
One guy in my Semantics and Pragmatics class last semester made an interesting presentation on ideophones, which relate to onomatopoeia and synaesthesia, all of which describe the idea that words can have a natural feel about them. Maybe this feel is language dependent, or maybe it’s something more universal, but it’s definitely something to think about — why a word sounds like it does, and how it gets its vibe. Go take a look at this picture, and decide for yourself- which is “kiki” and which is “booba”?
So I welcome you to my big, heavy, lumpy blog. I’ll be ranting here about all sorts of mixed pieces of my life and adventures, as well as bits of language, technology, language technology, music, education and current affairs, when I come to feel a passion for something. I hope to see you round!
