So far I’m the only entrant. I guess that means I’ll just have to keep the prizes…
Posts Tagged 'fun photos'
Dead Language Geek Photo Contest ends at midnight tonight
Published 22 May 2009 Uncategorized 5 CommentsTags: BDAG, big liddell, competitions for geeks, dead language contest, e. a. sophocles, fun photos, great scott, Greek, Latin, little liddell, middle liddell, my kids will latin and greek when they're newborns, my kids will learn latin and greek when they're newborns, oxford latin dictionary, oxford university press spring sale, payne smith, photo contest for language geeks, Syriac, the only good language is a dead language
Official “Dead Language Geek Photo Contest” entry post
Published 7 May 2009 Academia , General 2 CommentsTags: BDAG, big liddell, competitions for geeks, dead language contest, e. a. sophocles, fun photos, great scott, Greek, Latin, little liddell, middle liddell, my kids will latin and greek when they're newborns, my kids will learn latin and greek when they're newborns, oxford latin dictionary, oxford university press spring sale, payne smith, photo contest for language geeks, Syriac, the only good language is a dead language
And here… we… go.
From top to bottom:
Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary, Smythe Greek Grammar, Middle Liddell, Payne Smith Compendious Syriac Dictionary, BDAG, Sophocles Glossary of Later and Byzantine Greek, Great Scott, OLD.
Refresher on the plan:
Find a creative way to picture yourselves with your ginormous dead language reference materials. If that’s a photo, great. If that’s a video, great. Just come up with something. Mine’s pretty obvious; you can do better than that.
Post it on Flickr or Twitpic or YouTube or wherever, and then leave a link as a comment on this post.
You have until 22 May 2009 to take your picture and post your link (which means I also have that long to come up with a prize or prizes).
Multiple entries are fine.
Tweet this, Facebook it, e-mail it around, put it up in skywriting — but I want to see as many entries as possible. I’m quite serious about this. Let’s show the world we’ve got big, heavy, obscure books, and we’re not ashamed of that.
Get ready, get set — go! Have fun!
“It’s the Oxford Latin Dictionary!” “Great Scott!” “Yes, that too!”
Published 7 May 2009 Academia , General 1 CommentTags: BDAG, big liddell, competitions for geeks, dead language contest, fun photos, great scott, Greek, Latin, little liddell, middle liddell, my kids will latin and greek when they're newborns, my kids will learn latin and greek when they're newborns, oxford latin dictionary, oxford university press spring sale, photo contest for language geeks, the only good language is a dead language
Of course, I caved. I mean, I can actually sort of justify buying them now that I’m going to be a real grad student and stuff.
Besides, Megan and I can both use the OLD. At what comes to a 60% net discount, it just makes sense, right?
On top of that — who needs weights when you have multiple 10lb dictionaries you can lift? Really, somebody should come up with a routine for six-pack abs that involves these things. Then we people who do obscure languages could argue that there are health benefits.
And, as you see, they’re so shiny and new, they’re reflecting each other in their jackets.
For purposes of scale:
From bottom to top, that’s the Big Liddell/Great Scott, the Oxford Latin Dictionary, the BDAG, the Middle Liddell, and then the Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary.
When I posted the link to the sale, I said to send me pictures of you with your purchases, but let’s expand that, because I don’t think that’s geeky enough.
No, not by half.
Here’s what I want you to do:
Take all of your scholarly dictionaries — grammars are okay too, I suppose — and find a way to arrange them creatively and photograph yourself with them. Creatively edit the photo if you want, too. When I say creative, that gives you very broad license. Let your dead language nerd freak flag fly. Heck, if you even want to figure out a way to do a video, I’d love to see it.
Post your own result on Flickr or Twitpic or YouTube or somewhere, and then post the link as a comment on a post I will put up tonight. Let’s say you have till Friday, 22 May — that gives time to get the word out that somebody really is crazy enough to ask for this, and it will be between Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation for movie releases. Do it on Friday, 15 May instead of going to see Angels and Demons (what’s sad is, I’ve never read the book and don’t plan to, have no idea what the story actually is from the trailers and have zero intention of seeing the film, but it is patently obvious who the real bad guy is the way the trailer is edited, much as was the case with Mel Gibson’s Payback).
Do I have a prize? I don’t know. I’ll try to come up with something.
So, forward this around to other language geeks. Tweet it. Put it on Facebook, MySpace, Craigslist, whatever.
I’m serious about this. An academic year has come and gone; something insane is called for.
Get to it.
Cleaning out the camera
Published 13 October 2008 General , Media Leave a CommentTags: aspect ratios are fun, batman, bernard j. farber is my hero, blu-ray, can i put an hdtv in the skevophylakion?, dvd, fun photos, harley quinn, hdtv, home electronics madness, i am not a photographer, i spit on hd-dvd's grave, the dark knight, The Joker, the joker and harley quinn, there is one batman and christian bale is his portrayer, toys i want but don't yet have
Sometimes I think having a digital camera is a waste for somebody like me. I rarely think to take it with me, when I do think to take it with me I rarely think to take pictures, when I do take pictures I rarely think to retrieve them for use, and when I do retrieve them I rarely think to use them or show them to anybody.
For example — I took these back in July. One is my ticket for the advance screening of The Dark Knight (taken because I assumed, correctly, that they wouldn’t let me keep it)
Or some of the characters I ran into at said screening:
Perhaps a bit more timely while the movie was still in the top 10 — but no matter. I have pre-ordered the DVD; I’ve also pre-ordered the Blu-Ray. (I may even get to see it one more time in IMAX yet.) This is significant because I do not yet have a Blu-Ray player or a TV which would make the Blu-Ray experience truly worthwhile. That said, the Blu-Ray is supposed to simulate what they did with the IMAX experience — basically the aspect ratio will change as appropriate. That sounds really freakin’ cool, so hopefully prices come down a bit between now and Christmas. We’ll see. (I wonder how that will work for widescreen tvs.)
I have some photos from this weekend which I hope to post within the next couple of days rather than the next couple of years. One can hope.
Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist 