Magic Jewball

It’s Sunday morning at 7am and this can only mean one thing. If you guessed that it means that I woke up early you are SO wrong. It means that I began fiddling with my blog at 3am and never went to sleep. But if you guessed that I am truly insane, you would be quite correct.

Stealing a page from my blogfriend Midwesterner in NYC, I decided to install a plugin (that’s a “whatsit” to you non-bloggers) that would tabulate my top commenters in the sidebar there. I mean, in my defense, I did already have a “last 10 comments” box so you could gaze dreamily at your name after you had commented, but I think this takes it to a whole new level. I set it to be a rolling two week tally and knocked myself off the list so I could focus on you, being that this blog is already pretty Beccacentric. Unlike Mid, there will be no commentary and I will do no tabulating. It’s strictly based on quantity and the “whatsit” does it all for me. I love compupers!

Next, I put up a calendar which shows which days I’ve posted on. This is for me, really, so I can bask in my plethora of posts (that would have worked better last month) or berate myself for my slackeriness (hello, April!). If you’re wondering what took so long, first, as always, I don’t exactly know what I’m doing and have to consult 85 websites, and second, you know me. You know that if all the other sidebar items are black text/white text hover/cornflower blue shade hover, that this would have to be too. I’m still not sure I love it but at least it’s consistent. And if you move your cursor over the date it’ll tell you what exactly I posted that day, although that seemed to come with the calendar. But I still like to do it and ooh and aah.

By the way, I don’t think commenters is a word. And neither is commentors. What’s up with that? Actually, the thing was originally called “Top Commentators,” but that made us all sound like we were on the McNeil/Lehrer Newshour.

I think I’ll go to sleep now.

Edited at 4:30pm to add:

While I’m thanking my commenters & commentators, I’d like to highlight this new service where you can keep track of all the places you’ve commented and check in one place if anyone has answered you or commented after you. It’s called Commentful and you have to sign up but how could they keep track of your commenting otherwise? Each time you comment you just add it to that page and it keeps track till you tell it not to. There’s a Firefox plugin too and even though it hung the one time I tried to use it to add something, it seems to reliably indicate when there are new comments. And you can even add it to your feed reader! This is a screenshot of where I’ve commented today, although they were wrong about one site which shows zero but actually has six. Oops. (click to enlarge):

And now back to the Yankee game and listening to the wind and rain howl against my windows.

I don’t know why I read Jewlicious but I do. Even though I only really skim their posts, I like their multi-faceted, Jews of all stripes, mostly based in Israel approach. Or maybe it’s the girl in the “I heart hashem” t-shirt. In any event, I have to say, my favorite comments are by the non-Jews. Since I can’t go to bed without having my RSS reader at zero (it’s a curse, I tell you!) I just went there (stupid partial feeds) when this comment caught my eye:

Sunny says:

I have respect for Jews especially the israeli jews because they have shown tremendous bravery by living in such a hostile surrounding.
Arab-israeli dispute should end as soon as possible.

I developed interest in jew because their customs are similar to our Hindu customs.

And i will definitely marry a jew and bring her to india to live and enjoy india’s diversity and culture. I am confident that she will definitely raise our childrens to be good people.

Is anybody listening!!!

I’m listening, Sunny, and I’m interested in jew too. It sounds like a fabulous way to meet chicks, leaving comments on Jewlicious posts from 2005. But in case that doesn’t work out for you, I’d give Craigslist a try.

The song I want isn’t available on Napster. Which blows because it’s fabulous. But here’s the video which is also fabulous.

I’m sorry I’ve been a little out of touch but it’s been necessary to eat my way through New York to make up for eight days of matzah. Actually, I didn’t really eat very much matzah. If you’re a regular matzah-eater you’ll get my meaning. If not, let me tell you the true meaning of Passover. The Jews were slaves in Egypt but God rescued them by sending ten plagues (this was actually my Google widget French word of the day the other day but I’ve already forgotten it - that’s OK, I don’t think it’ll come up in too many everyday conversations). But the Jews were in a rush and God knew there’d be no bathrooms on the way to the Promised Land so in His infinite wisdom, He provided them with matzah to stop them up completely. This is why I don’t really eat matzah.

The first thing I ate was sushi but it disappointed; the local Japanese place clearly did not understand my need for “I just escaped from the island on Lost” type quality. You may wonder why I didn’t go with a known quantity with my take-out but I’ve taken to ordering on SeamlessWeb so that I don’t need to speak to any humans who will mangle my order, and they don’t have every restaurant out there just yet. And this morning I had my own version of the ubiquitous McDonald’s breakfast sandwich but without bacon. I call this an Egg BecMuffin. This didn’t really hit me in the right spot either. But finally, this evening, I found the food that reminded me that grain can be transmuted and combined with copious amounts of sugar and nuclear food coloring to obtain The Perfect Food.

Yes, after that many searches showing up in my stats, I just couldn’t take it anymore, and went for the Fruity Pebbles. I was too lazy to take a photo and post it when there are so many good ones already out there, but my box actually used the word “wholesome” on it as well as touting how many vitamins and how much fiber it has. See, if you were reading last year you’ll remember that my first chametz food was Cocoa Puffs but this year I decided to go with a health food.

LL Cool J - Milky Cereal

Oh, and postscript: I’ve had reports that the movie I posted a few days ago is wreaking havoc with some people’s systems, I’m guessing those who don’t have Quicktime or are still using PS/2’s from the Reagan era. Sorry about that, folks, I’ll try to fix it when it’s not 4 in the morning.

Edit, 4/14… I gave in and loaded the video up to YouTube and did a link. I hate giving up. Anyhoo, you can now enjoy my 1:23 of Simpsons snippet without crashing Internet Explorer. It’s back down there in the Crepes of Wrath. Keep scrolling. Yes, that’s it.

I’m not around today but in case my two posts from yesterday aren’t enough to occupy your time, feel free to go read my guest post over at Midwesterner in NYC where I’m honored to be able to fill in today. I know, can you believe after last summer’s fun with TAN that someone asked me to guest post for them again? Don’t worry, I didn’t go after the Mets this time, just Gawker*. Thanks, Mid!

*I love you, Gawker!

Recently, after doing some J-Ball catch-up reading, Jan sent me an e-mail that said, “why the hell are you still learning French???????” I had to cut and paste that exactly because I wanted to make sure I got in all her question marks without having to count them. Those who didn’t have a squirming baby on their laps might remember that I said I would explain why that was, but thanks, Jan, for the handy intro.

Let me digress for a moment and say that this is a problem all bloggers must face: half their readers don’t know them except in pixel form and the other half know the living, breathing, 3D form and all of that form’s personal history. Or some other variation on that. I like to think that only 10% of my readers know me and the others think I’m a five-year-old in striped pants. Either way, I have to answer two, two, two questions in one.

1. Why would an adult take on another language when everyone knows it’s far easier to just die and be reincarnated as a non-English speaker?

2. Why would a person who previously had a reason to learn another language and had that reason snatched away want to now go ahead and learn it anyway, especially if it might remind them of that experience?

I’ll leave you smart people to figure out who is asking which question. But because I love all of you (except Crazy Digg Guy, you not so much) I’ll answer both questions. First off, let me explain the difficulty of this endeavor. See, I’m already weakly bilingual which is what convinced me that learning another language is about as simple as learning to grow another arm. I mean, I was spoken to in Hebrew as an infant, learned it in school for 14 years, took classes completely in the language, and I still can only have slow-ass, basic conversations. Reading is easier, true, which is good because this way I know what I’m buying at the local Israeli-stocked grocery stores (Milki pudding - thumbs up!). But it’d be nice to have interaction in Israel beyond “Does this bus go to Zion Square?” I think my brain is just wired for English. I try to listen to the news in Easy Hebrew occasionally to help myself but without immersion I think it’s just a lost cause.

So the answer to #1 is, time for a new second language! I mean, it’s hard, it’s really hard. I think going to Squeeze the Life Out of You University (where I took Hebrew Lit III for my language requirement) spoiled me on learning forever and it’s a hard habit to re-obtain. But I’m up to it! Every time I get a flashcard right on my software I think, “yeah! I can do this!” It’s the kind of feeling you don’t really get shilling CD’s and tabulating sales figures. And the fact that it’s for no particular purpose liberates me completely to Just Do It. I mean, who cares if I fail? There’s no pay-off except feelgoodness. (You’re probably thinking I could use a good English class too, I know).

Right, #2. Hm. The fact is, letting go has set me free and now that I’m over all that, I realize I invested in weeks of pricey French lessons, learned in other ways, and really, why see it as a loss? I’ve decided it was actually an investment and there’s no reason to waste it. It’s kind of like that expression, “when life hands you lemons, make la limonade.” It just adds to the sense of accomplishment, triumph of the human spirit, and all that blah blah. And truly, it doesn’t particularly remind me of anything except that I like a challenge and, as a plaque in our kitchen when I grew up said, “kef lilmod,” or, “it’s fun to learn,” (my mother was an educator, what can I say). I used to roll my eyes at it, even though it had a cute picture of a cartoon monkey holding a book. But I guess I’m the monkey now.

Adding to all this is the fact that I’m now learning for free (well, I spent $12 on flashcards but Borders is exorbitant, we all know that). It’s another of my challenges to find every free method of language education on the Interweb. Here are my myriad teachers:

1. French Pod Class with Sebastien. I picked this one out of the many on offer at iTunes because his slogan is “Pardon my French, I’m learning with Sebastien.” How could you go wrong with that? The podcasts include quirky music and have accompanying texts. My one complaint is that he’s too soft-spoken for the NY subway system. But otherwise, he seems willing to do anything for his listeners aside from donating a kidney.

2. Before You Know It software. You get a decent number of flashcard lists in the free version, it intuitively figures out when you get something and when you don’t, and the narrator enunciates like he needs deaf people to hear it. Plus he just seems so cheerful. When he says “la bière,” you kind of imagine he’s about to have some.

3. The news in français facile at Radio France Internationale. I took a page from my Easy Hebrew learning and I have to say, they have a great set-up (the French seem to really want people to learn this language). They provide you with a transcript and the option to stream or download the newscast. You can also do a quiz, albeit with ridiculously easy questions (”this event [TGV breaking the speed record] took place in a. France, b. Germany, c. Great Britain”).

4. Learn French at about.com. Tons of resources: listening comprehension, vocabulary, audio files, verb conjugations, mot-du-jour, sticky topics, etc. And the sound files are done by an American woman so you can almost imagine yourself pronouncing things correctly. Not this word, though.

5. The gTranslate plugin for Firefox. You can just highlight a word or phrase and right-click to translate it (it uses Google’s translation). Handy for my Le Monde RSS feed where I attempt to translate any interesting article I come across. I know way more about the French elections than the American ones and I kind of like it that way. I won’t tell you who I’m supporting but ensemble tout devient possible!

So the only loser in this is Mamadou, my Senegalese former French teacher. But on the plus side, now I can afford Ermin the cleaning lady so that I can have a sparkling apartment in which to scatter my $12 flash cards.

Pictures above (click to enlarge) by moi. Title comes from this early Simpsons episode.