Muhammad's dialect.

I was cc'd on this email by a work colleague:

Fontella Jones,

We have left messages for 2 of these girl’s parents and tried to talk to parents of the other. Neither parent spoke much English (not Spanish speaking) so we did the best we could but did not get far. We are trying to figure our a way to communicate with these families but no promises….Spanish we can do but these appear to be an African/Muhammed dialect so wish us luck…

- Astronaut Mike Dexter

I, in fact, was the one who made the attempt to communicate with the families mentioned here. And I can say with near-certainty that the man I talked to was actually speaking King Henry VIII dialect, with possibly a mix of a few John Wycliffe dialect words and phrases. These are dialects with which I am well accustomed. But he had the accent of a speaker of Muhammad dialect, to which my ear is not attuned. He could not understand me because I was speaking Joseph Smith dialect with a Prince Vladimir I inflection that I picked up from my time in Ukraine. Knowing the gentleman was from Northern Africa, I tried to channel what I had picked up in Johannesburg listening to the South African John Wesley dialect, but this strategy was hampered by colloquialisms that don't transcend the region. It was more confusing than trying to communicate with my Siddhartha Guatama-speaking friends in middle school. Needless to say, my colleague's assessment is accurate: we did the best we could, but did not get far.

How to get robbed.

Like many, many people, I use Google's gmail service for all of my emailing needs. There are myriad reasons people use Google's package of web-based services: they might like how colorful the calendars are; they might like other things. One thing about gmail that I am neutral on is the news feed update bar at the top of the screen:

The red arrow and box show where the news updates appear.

And below all of that, you can see Jim Beveridge's inbox. I don't

know who Jim Beveridge is, but between emails from the

AOL Beta Administrator, The Planet Marketing, and himself,

he appears to be all business. Except for that forwarded message

about the VERY big kitty. I hope Jim stopped to check that one out.

It's important to give your brain a little break every once in a while.

It doesn't bother me to see a little tag for some story that the sharply-dressed, fair and balanced cats at Fox News think is crucial to get out there. It just doesn't really excite me, either. I think the only time I've ever clicked on the link to read one of those stories was when it was a BBC story about Richard Branson announcing commercial space flight for all (who have like $400,000 laying around) in his Virgin Atlantic Star Cruiser or whatever the shuttle is called. That was a grabby headline they put up at the top of my inbox, and I took the bait, and I was not disappointed. But usually nothing in that little space can entice me to click on the link to find out more. But today...

Today I was checking my email and I saw this:

CNN.com Recently Published/Updated - How to NOT get robbed when traveling - 1 hour ago

Now this, I thought, is going to be worth reading! But luckily I stopped to give the prospect of reading the story a little more contemplation before I took action. Why would anyone at CNN write such a story, I asked myself, and why would they feel it was crucial to present the word "not" in all caps? It could be that earlier they had accidentally posted a story on their site entitled "How To Get Robbed When Traveling", and had subsequently received many complaints from faithful readers who took the story's advice and pointers to heart and were then relieved of precious passports and digital cameras while on holiday in Europe. Would I really want to invest time into reading an article from such a careless and socially irresponsible news outlet? The other possibility I considered was that CNN wants people to get robbed while traveling, so they are trying to mislead people into reading an article that will give them a false sense of security. Maybe the article tells travelers that the best way to keep your money safe is to pin it to the outside of your pants, because people in other countries have got tourists' backs. If this is the case, then I obviously wouldn't want anything to do with this story. So I did not read it. Which makes me feel less informed, but also very clever.

Oh, there is nothing like emailing in the spring!!!

I received this email:

Hi Monsignor Frampton! This Is Ursula Vivienne Mikhailovic!

I called yesterday (April14th 2011) and we discussed when i should be able to come in and call again! You said early May or June? Also, i would volunteer in the community but i don't hold a driver's license! I am willing to help volunteer with anything until i get my license and i will be will to help out with the community! Let me know! Thanks so much!

-Ursula Vivienne Mikhailovic

I wanted to match her obvious enthusiasm, so I responded thus:

Ok!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol

Received this email from Borpo at Ray-Ray's Fun House:

Hey I Really want to do this.. I have 5 younger siblings... but none of them are with my anylonger. so I was hoping that maybe I could find another "brother" lol so it sounds like a good program is there any schools in wvc that I could go to? if not may I get an exact adress?

What we have here is a showcase of new-age punctuation... like "lol".. "lol" counts as punctuation now, you know lol it basically has the same function as a period lol the ellipse is a useful alternative to a comma... although you have to remember to put three periods in it (if you only put two... it acts like a period... like "lol") lol so there's your punctuation lesson for the day.. now you shouldn't be troubled by these tricky buggers anylonger..

Lazer cappability: the ease with which a laser can be capped

Apparently, the Japan tsunami washed a lot of garbage into the ocean. There is a story on NPR.org about the efforts of scientists to forecast where all of this garbage will end up (it was concluded that most of it would wash up in Hawaii and the west coast of the continental US). Naturally, many web-nerds have been busy commenting and counter-commenting on the story. Some of the comments deal with individuals' small-minded indignation at this sea garbage even being a story at all:

Rebekah Scott (rebrites) wrote:

I wonder who the poor Hawaiian tourists and surfer dudes will find to sue for their pain and suffering. Thousands in Japan die or are hurt or lose their homes and health, and all the USA can do is whine "what about ME???"

That is silly, ma'am. Of course the worst thing about the tsunami is the human suffering it has caused, but it doesn't mean that tons of garbage floating all over the world is a non-issue. We can be concerned about both things at the same time. Howzat?

While a portion of the posted comments are rooted at the holy roller level of "everyone is a selfish jerk except for me", more enlightened minds are using their comments to propose viable solutions to the inevitable landfall of the mass of trash. Enlightened minds like astro-maritime technology guru Pat Jessee:

Pat Jessee (jypssee) wrote:

Is there not a lazer cappabilty to reduce this flowting island of debris into dust size particals? Or a large ship with a big drop down opening where it could swallow up and sort and recycle major wood, etc.

Come on, scientists! Have we forgotten our laser capabilities? And our lazer cappabilities? Is it not high time we deployed the large drop-down opening sorting ship? This is a call to action! The island of debris is flowting towards us as we speak!!

Sandwich

Oh no. Dang. Everything is terrible. This is really, really bad. This is not going to jive when I take it downtown. April fools'! Everything's good. I have a sandwich!

And Sven and I moved Kristen's desk around so she couldn't slide her legs in under it, and replaced her pictures of her nieces and nephews with these pictures. And then we told everyone in the office about it and left to get lunch like idiots. So of course when I came back and took a drink from my water bottle which I had left open on my desk (idiot!), I filled my mouth with Indian Ocean-grade salt water. Still didn't ruin my sandwich, though.

The funny thing about April Fools' Day (besides the question of where the apostrophe belongs in "fools'", that always threw me off) is that many people just use it as an excuse to lie. I don't mean maliciously, but just as a joke. That's the form their pranking takes. Like ladies who get pictures of ultrasounds off the internet and tell their husbands they are pregnant. "April fools', honey!" they say.

But that's just how I roll every day. Everything is just a big joke to me. So for April Fools' Day to have any special meaning for me, I need to do something relatively big, like turn someone's desk around (compared to just fabricating a pregnancy, that is big). Not that I usually do. Most years, my April Fools' Day is spent nervously looking out for someone to pull a mean prank on me. I'm always slightly worried that there will be one guy at the gas station or the bank or something who will think a great April Fools' Day joke is to just punch me in the ear. So in light of that possibility, today has been a pretty good April Fools'. I committed a small turn of japery, and was paid back in kind. And nobody at the sandwich place laid a finger on me. I do still have to go to the gas station, though.