September 2008 Archives

If you were ever looking for a cool map to print out maps and customize them, highlight features, etc, then I've found a really awesome site to do such a thing.

The FreeMap website is a really cool place to check out to freshen up on your geography, or maybe just to get a map that you really need for a report out and on paper. This is a really useful tool that is well worth keeping stores in your bookmarks just in case you ever need it.

It seems that my video posts never came to much fruition, but perhaps as most things seem to be now on this blog - in the future- and maybe when I get a nice break going to write some more interesting tidbits.

For the next few days I will be posting videos from the video site Vimeo. I'm far too busy to dedicate more than a few moments to the blog, quite unfortunately I am having a lot of writers block finding appropriate theses for my research papers. Anyways today I have a video about Spain included for your enjoyment.

As I was speaking about yesterday my friend from Iran introduced me to the Iranian author Ferdowsi who wrote the very famous Shanameh know in English as the Epic of Kings.

Ferdowsi was a Persian poet renowned for his works, as well as a peculiar non-affinity to Islam, although he was a Muslim.

You can read the translation here at the Epic of Kings. Also, a bit more about Ferdowsi can be found at Wikipedia, as well as some additional information about the Shanmeh.

Conversing with my new found friend from Iran I was surprised to find that he apparently loathes music, but is perfectly content with poetry and epics from his culture. In Muslim prayer the Qur'an is recited in a very what one might say musical manner, but it is apparently an insult to assume that it is "sung." I was so surprised when my friend told me without hearing but a few notes of Mozart that he hated it.

Unfortunately, Iran has strict rules concerning music, especially western music, which is banned in a de facto manner. In fact, there is even an underground music culture in Iran, which is promoting the spread of music, despite the governmental restrictions. You can read at NPR about an underground band that is doing quite well through its underground efforts: Hypernova: Illegal Indie-Rock from Iran. In my subsequent entires for this week I hope to share some Iranian poetry and some information for viewing, and perhaps some reading in the coming days.

Quite a few apologies are due since I simply haven't had the motivation to write, and perhaps a lack of time due to focus in other areas. 

My friend from Brazil a bit of a cook told me one day he was eating fish, to which I replied, "I hate fish!"or something to that tune. He told me though that the fish he was eating was seasoned with coffee and didn't taste anything like fish. A particularly odd little recipe, which is well worth a try I suppose, for the lack of fish and the presence of coffee.

My prayers and feeling go out to my dear from in Brasil who gave this to me, as he is dealing with several very difficult problems in his family. I wish him all the best, as I do for all the new friends I have encountered over the summer.

You can find the recipe at Globominas called Peixe ao molho de café.

I've wanted to post a foreign language joke every Monday, but I believe that would be a little too time consuming. Today I've got a joke in Spanish that I originally heard in English wrote to my friend in Argentina in Spanish, and then finally my friend from the Dominican Republic kindly fixed my grammatical errors and formatted it for easier reading. Enjoy!
Chiste del lunes:

Tres hombres de la india trantan de hacerse detectives, pero son muy etupidos, pero aun así están en la prueba para hacerse detectives, un detective les dice: Tengo una foto de un ladrón, esa foto tiene las pistas para encontrar el ladrón.

 

Ahora cada uno tiene que buscar la pista. El primer hombre mira la foto por 5 segundos (La foto solo esta de perfil), entonces el primer hombre dice: "Muy fácil este hombre solo tiene una oreja".

El detective muy enojado dice: Recuerden que la foto esta de perfil.

 

El segundo hombre ve la foto y dice: "Muy fácil, este hombre tiene una sola oreja"

 

El detective se enoja  otra vez.

 

Finalmente el ultimo hombre ve la foto y dice: "Es muy fácil, este hombre usa lentes de contacto"

 

El detective estaba muy sorprendido, entonces el detective fue a revisar el archivo de ese ladrón, y el ladrón usaba lentes de contacto.

 

El detective sorprendido dice: "Cómo hiciste para  saber?

 

Y el tercer hombre dijo, "Porque él tiene una oreja y un ojo. Por esa razón él no  puede llevar ante ojos."