Thank you, Lexmark

I still remember the sad moment in the fall of 2004 when I had to part with my Lexmark Optra R+ laser printer. I replaced it with a Lexmark C510 color laser printer. To be honest, I haven’t been using the color printing feature that much; the toner is too expensive. But it has been a reliable, fast printer – until last Saturday. All of a sudden, a sizable vertical margin on the...

Dem Ingeniör ist nichts zu schwör

If you’re wondering whether anybody’s home – I just noticed that it has been more than three months since I last posted. I have plenty to say, believe me. It is just that a 40 hours a week in-house contract job together with the almost two hours commuting is not inducive to writing blog posts. So it will have to be later. Without naming names: I’m contracted as a software...

Pizza Feng Shui

You know it has to be California when the top daily newspaper in the state writes in a restaurant review: The haphazardly arranged dining room has all the feng shui of your downstairs closet… They were talking about the pizza restaurant Mother Dough in Silver Lake, by the way. Once upon a time, I blogged quite a few such short observations. I don’t know why I’m no...

First Person Subjunctive

It is not that often that one finds the first person plural present subjunctive in the wild. The pop genre is probably not a place one would have expected it. But the The Magnetic Fields, named after the André Breton novel Les Champs Magnétiques, are not your usual band. One song on their 1999 three-volume album 69 Love Songs is entitled Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing....

Little Red Lung

In today’s Los Angeles Times was a note about the upcoming Annual Eagle Rock Music Festival. The list of acts reads like a hat tip to Dave Barry: At the heart of the festival will be The Main Stage, which will feature internationally renowned artists such as Bosnian Rainbows, Kingdom b2b Nguzunguzu, Dub Club, Night Slugs, Young Adults, Boardwalk, Skin Town, and Little Red...

Qualis pagatio, talis laboratio

On-line, a client is looking for (native speakers only) experienced translators in the following languages. Good luck!