Novelista

After Leverhelven's post about crazy things we used to believe when we were younger, I thought about odd things we do right now. (Or not so odd, but we never would've thought we'd do it when we were younger.)

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My thing right now is looking up words--even slurs--to see where they come from. The one slur I couldn't figure out was the "w-word" (and I don't mean another name for a prostitute). It turns out that it comes from the belief that Mexican immigrants swim across the Rio Grande to get here, thus they have...well, I'm sure you can figure it out.

Something odd is the way place names (or even regular names) are pronounced differently in different places. Like in the States, Toledo is "Toe-lead-oh", but in Spain, it would be "Toe-lay-doh". In Australia, it's "Mel-burn", but in Florida, it's "Mel-born". Or (and this is the one that got me thinking of people names) "Genevieve" is "Jen-ih-veev" in many places, but in Francophone parlance, it's "Zhon-vee-ev". (I have a hard time transliterating the French j, so I usually put in a Z.)

And then there are words that we pronounce with extra letters that just aren't there! I'm sure that's from the fact that English steals words from other languages. Like "patio" versus "ratio". "Patio" is pronounced as it looks, but "ratio" has an S sound. What's up with that?! (I had a cousin who laughed at me when I was little for purposely mispronouncing a street name that has that in it, but I agree with my younger self: "There's no S in it!") Or how everyone pronounces "Cambridge" like there's two i's. *facepalm*

Anyone else?

Isis Lirio for a girl. I've wanted to name my daughter Isis since I was eight, even before She became my patron goddess. "Lirio" means "lily" in Spanish, but I liked it because it was the name of the good Witch/priestess in The Craft. (Her store was so cool!)

Edouard Andreu for a boy. I don't want a boy, but it's good to be prepared. Maybe the traditional spelling (Edward Andrew), depending on the father.

Also, I have a thing where I want my daughter to have my surname, but if I have a son, he'll have his father's. Unless his father has a really crazy surname, like "Porn". (Yes, there really is someone in my area with that name! He works for Epic/NRA, a polling group.) In that case, I'll "pull down" Lynd from my mother's side (it was my grandmother's maiden name), since the only one left with the Lynd surname will probably never get married. I think "Edward Andrew Lynd" sounds kind of nice. ^_^

(Oops. I forgot about my cousins Adam and Trevor, who I never see anymore. Oh well...so there will be three boys to carry down that surname!)

I need all three, but I'm going with Order because they were my original faction (before my account was frozen).

And this time, I'm setting a timer so I know when to battle!

I haven't done nerks in a while, but I would love to come back here and use this as a log thread the next time I do.

I haven't gotten pbs/ppbs in a long time, either. I think the most valuable pb I ever got out of it was an Elderly brush. I about flipped my lid!

I've heard the whole marrow thing hurts, too, so you're super-duper brave, Saxen!

I'm cnidophobic and didn't stop crying about having bloodwork until I was twenty-five! The only thing that makes it tolerable now is a butterfly needle (smallest gauge...hardly hurts), the "lay-back chair" and the promise of a juice box at the end. ^_^ Sadly, I still have to put up with a standard needle for an IV...I doubt they'd agree to the butterfly for that. :P

That being said, I can't give blood or plasma--I'd freak out! (I still have a memory of my first draw...I swear to this day that they took a small volume bag instead of vials!) It's a shame, too...my friend gives plasma as often as possible and gets $40 a pop. I hear some places give $200 at a time!

I just remembered that I forgot about Miss Kotora!

I recall reading in one of my geisha books that Ko + Momo = "little peach", so I figure that if you put "ko" on "tora" (tiger), it should mean "little tiger". (Not that I'm at all positive about that!)

I probably could've gotten away without the "miss", but I felt it was appropriate; so she's "Miss Little Tiger", the white kougra. (Since that's as close to a white tiger as you can get on Neopets...and white tigers are my favorite.)

The problem I see with that is that TNT has already assigned sizes/weights to each of the pets and I don't have any reason to give that they might get the imperative to change them.

But I'll try to remember to finish my list and make it into a chart on a petpage. Just keep on me about it! :D

Oh, I know what you mean, Shel...I took that same gamble with Lord Koschei. I got lucky. O.o

I thought it was best if we didn't hijack this thread for our neopets (despite the reassurance from our lovely OP), so I posted a separate thread here.

(P.S.: I really like the name Sashma! Creative!)

Bck32808 started a topic about where our offline pets got their names and said we could talk about our Neopets, too, but I thought it would be better to start a separate thread, rather than get off track with the original.

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Main

Empress of the Night: one of those pets where you want a really cool sounding name. I think "Queen of the Night" was already taken. :P

Lord Koschei: I'm not really into Doctor Who (despite having BBC-A now), but I briefly had a crush on Julia Roberts's brother, who is the only American to have played The Master. Wiki mentions a possible name for The Master as "Koschei", who was an antagonist in Slavic folklore. Koschei by itself was taken, so I added "lord" on the front. I think I originally meant to have him look as evil as possible, but after crosspainting him shadow, I thought he looked pretty cool with some of his "hatching clothes" intact. I also like the Lost Desert wings a lot better than his natural wings, so that's why he has them. ^_^


Primary Side

Isis-Andraste: I had an FFQ and needed a good name for a Desert pet, so that's what I chose. For those of you who don't know, Isis is an Egyptian mother goddess and Andraste was a war goddess invoked by Boudica.

Beloved Greg and Darling Dominic: as you know, I have quite the crush on Greg Hicks. ;) | My crush on Dominic West has been touch-and-go since Burton and Taylor (for which I watched solely to see Greg!), but apparently I decided he'd make a terrific gelert. So there we go. :D

Everwind Heart: another "cool name". I've tried variations on "otter" in different languages, but I don't think I've been as satisfied with any names as this.


Secondary Side

Ostara's Bunny: honestly, I don't know why I have a cybunny. I was going to get one because of my best friend/heartmom, but she and I broke up early last month...yet I still got one. Ostara is the Pagan celebration of spring and that's where the "Easter bunny" comes from. In goddess form, Ostara is usually referred to as Eostre, but I like "Ostara's Bunny" a lot better. My poem "Lady in Green" even has Ostara using Boudica's famous bunny divination, saying something like, "If he runs left, six more weeks of winter...if he runs right, spring will soon come."

Mark Harmon: my favorite NCIS actor! I wanted him without the hypen, but Mr. No-Hyphenate is on an abandoned account some Lindsay Lohan fan created after seeing Freaky Friday. I don't necessarily think Mark/Gibbs would make a good skeith...more that I like the fact that skeiths eat everything and he needed a good name. :D

I actually have an entire list of what animals the neopets are like. I used to have it all on a petpage, but I think that account was frozen...or I pounded the relevant pet.

On that same list, I've also started noting what I think the average height for each pet would be, as I don't believe they'd be as tiny as TNT would think (if they were real). I don't have that entire list done; but from what I have, the buzz would be the smallest at one foot (still too big for a stingie! YIKES!) and the largest would be the chomby, standing in at 6.75 feet. (My notes say that stegosauruses were up to nine feet tall, but I think a chomby would be a smaller and cuter species.) I imagine when I finish the list, grarrls will be the biggest, as Google tells me tyrannosauruses were fifteen to twenty feet tall.

Oh, gosh...I hate names like "Fluffy", "Boots" and "Fido". If they're members of your family, give them real names!

(By the by...Shelley got a like for how funny "Juice Box" is.)

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My first cat was Abby. I don't know how I came up with it...I was just really certain I wanted to get a female cat and name her Abby. (That was before Abby joined the Babysitter's Club books, so it wasn't that.)

Rhiannon...there was a girl in my cabin at karate camp with that name, and that's also the name of the Welsh goddess of change. (Or the moon, in some lore.) It drove me nuts that some people called her "Rhianna"...and that was even before "Rihanna" became a popular singer! (My mom called her "Scooter" because she didn't like the name Rhiannon...that was even worse!)

I wanted to adopt a black cat and name her Morgan. Instead, a grey tabby adopted me--and Morgan didn't fit--so I named her Lauren, because that was my default name for my female novel characters at the time. (Morgan became her middle name.)

Congratulations on your graduation! I can't believe it's already time for my ten-year reunion! (I need a job so I can afford to go. xP )

I've worked through the summer...I did it for my bachelor's degree. But it was an accelerated program and most of us worked through the summer...only a couple of people didn't, because their scholarships wouldn't let them. Spring semester ran from January through May (four classes, four weeks each), then we had a week off before summer semester, a week off before fall semester and then two weeks off for the holidays. A lot of work, true, especially since I doubled up on some of my classes...but I was done in thirty-nine months! (3.25 years)

*reads Angel's post and nearly cries*

That's very, very beautiful.

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I really do think cats talk to each other, but not necessarily with their meows. I think they make noises out of our hearing range, because there are sometimes when one of our cats will be doing something and the other comes running...it's like the first one hollered at the other.

One thing I like to say (though I only believe it's about .001% true) is that cats can become invisible. All the times I've looked all over the house, the basement and everywhere and can't find one of them, but they suddenly appear later...it sure feels like they can go invisible! :laughingsmiley:

Something I know for certain is that a cat will come to check on you when you're sick not necessarily because they hear you throwing up, but because your scent changes. (A former friend told me that and I absolutely believe it.) I can totally believe that if something's wrong, your cat will smell it and think, "Ooo...she smells like that when she's in distress...I'd better go see if she needs comfort."

Sometimes I feel like I know what the cats are saying, but that just may be intuition. ;)

If you're putting them on Puffle, then yes, that will work...they're Kacheek Mail Carrier Trousers. I also bought the matching shoes. :D

I might change my mind on the shoes, but here's what I settled on...

What do we think?

I think I'm going LD this year.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I know, because I'm already looking at clothes for Empress to wear during the tournament. :D

Just started reading The One last night. Jumped to the end to see if it ended like I thought and then went back. Looks like there are going to be some rather interesting developments.

I finally looked at LD compared to SK and their stats are infinitely better.

But I'm used to playing with SK (however much that may matter, given that it's all in TNT's programming).

What to do, what to do...

Of course. How else would you get the 1.3k wins needed for All Star?

All-Star 1334 Rank Points Required
Required games:
1334 Yooyuball wins, or
4000 Yooyuball draws, or
2667 Slushie Slinger games, or
16000 Make Some Noise games, or
16000 Shootout Showdown games
(or any combination of the above)

I think there's a daily limit, but I have no idea what it is, because my fingers get tired long before I ever reach it.

I would say that I'd be looking forward to loyalty rewards after playing my second year for Shenkuu, but I just remembered that my account was frozen (that I played with last year). So I suppose if I wanted to change, this would be the year to do it.

I noticed you caught your error, Lyuba. :laughingsmiley: Elvis was the day after.

My birthday buddies are David Caruso, Katie Couric, Nic Cage (poor me, the way others seem to think he's such a loser), David Yost (original blue power ranger), Jeremy Renner, Dustin Diamond (yes, Screech...really poor me), Sammo Hung, Kenny Loggins...I think that's everyone? Oh, wait. Lynsey Fonseca, who played the daughter during the Bob Saget-narrated parts of How I Met Your Mother. :)

I don't know why I don't play/root for LD...I love Egypt, even more than Japan.

You know what I never thought to suggest on the survey? An ancient Roman land. I have a certain lupe who would like Roman armor.

Here's the node from last year. http://thedailyneopets.com/altador-cup/index

Good luck and Goddess bless!