Protector of Mankind's New Writeups

Pandeiro (thing)

2009-06-20T05:05:21Z

The Brazilian Tambourine

The pandeiro is a type of tambourine. What sets it apart from a basic tambourine is that it has a tunable drumhead and jingles that are able to produce complex staccato rhythms. And while you can play a pandeiro by tapping it wistfully against your palm, it is meant to be struck with the hand and fingers. A typical pattern involves striking it with your thumb, then fingers, then palm, then fingers. The thumb strike is close to the edge and produces a bass thump, the…

June 15, 2009 (person)

2009-06-16T13:40:05Z

Three different birds shit on me today. All within a couple hours of each other. Also I bought two tortoises. The shop owner offered me an endangered one. It was beautiful and its shell was a high dome but it looked weak and was crazy pricey. I had a stitch in my side all day. Now my shoulder is sore too. I really like my tortoise, the other one is in my wife's room. We went to a beautiful temple today and listened to the cicadas. I got a sunburn. All three bird shittings happened while I was driving my bike. My wife said we should buy a lottery ticket since I was so lucky. We bought a ticket but my stitch hurt so much that I had trouble standing straight and not getting annoyed. I didn't feel lucky at all. I felt like a soul trapped in a broken robot body.

Lopburi (place)

2008-11-01T07:54:36Z

Lopburi, Thailand

Lopburi aka MonkeyTown aka Lavo is a human/macaque cohabitation some 150 kilometers north-east of Bangkok. It is a provincial capital and is home to over 20 000 people and two large hordes of Crab-eating macaques.

One pack of macaques spend their time between two temples just north of the city's train station: San Phra Kan in the day and Prang Sam Yot at night. The other pack, a ragtag squad of miscreants if ever there was one, are found on the rooftops, streets and alleyways near the aforementioned temples. These poor urban macaques must contend with the darker side of the normally animal loving Thais. In the mornings, store owners swing sticks in disgust and hire urchins armed with slingshots and nuts to discourage the more lively, and these are some lively acrobatic shit disturbers, from pooping all over the place and stealing food and random items. If a macaque sees you eating something it will engage you, be…

Affix (idea)

2004-06-13T17:36:09Z

What is an Affix?

A word can be separated into two parts, its root and its affixes. The root is where the principal meaning of the word is found. An affix is what modifies the meaning of the root.

So let's use the the word improperly as an example. The root is proper and the affixes are im- and -ly. We add the affix im- to convey the meaning "not" and -ly is added to change the word proper from an adjective to an adverb.

We have three different names for affixes based on where they are found in relation to the root. A prefix (such as im-) which is added to the start of the root, an infix which is inserted inside the root and the suffix (such as -ly) which is added to the end. English, as far as I know, doesn't really have infixes with the possible exception of things like fanfuckingtastic. Words like…

Tag question (idea)

2004-04-22T18:29:00Z

"That was a good movie, wasn't it?"
"You couldn't wash the dishes, could you?"
"When you don't call and then come home late it upsets me, doesn't it?"

The above are examples of tag questions. A tag question is a fragment of a question attached to the end of a declarative clause. Normally, a positive clause gets a negative tag and vice versa. You can have a positive clause with a positive tag ("You can, can you?) but it is not as common and serves a different function (perhaps expressing disbelief) than common tag questions. Invariant tags are not clause dependent and are usually used for simple confirmation, "You booked the tickets, right?"

Common tag questions (like the ones at the top) can serve different purposes in conversations¹. I see them mostly as a way of facilitating conversation, and at times, a coercive method of beginning confrontational…

compliment (idea)

2004-04-17T16:53:14Z

In the evenings, sitting alone in silence, poring over and analyzing the patterns and missteps of the day's social interactions, my mind often rests on the subject of compliments. What compliments I gave and how they were received. What compliments I was given and what they revealed about the mind and motives of the complimentor. If you too like to pick apart the minutia of the day's conversations, you may be interested in considering the hotchpot of ideas below.

The three parts of a compliment

There are three parts to a compliment. I will use the compliment "I like your red car" to illustrate the three components.

First, there is the phonetics that are spoken and their literal meaning, your red car pleases me.

Second, there is the reason or purpose for the compliment being given, I like cars. I like your car. We both value cars, and this car, and me…