Good Characters, Inc. (oh, the irony) has launched a new application for Apple iPhones called "Chinese Alphabet".http://goodcharacters.com/blog/blog.php?id=110The application uses a set of random Chinese characters to correspond with 26 letters in English alphabet. The company claims this will "add mystery to your writing".At least they are smart...

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MERRY JESUS-BIRTHDAY! to all of you, my patient fellow Sundergirdians*, or, as a soul might say in the Half-Continent, "Hale Thisgivingday!"Time is inexorably moving on and not too soon we will be in the actual year of Book 3's publication (if not the month yet).I want to thank you all for a year of great (though, I confess slow) blogging, of the...

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http://www.bme.com/tattoo/A91210/high/jyc7-tribals-natural.jpgAt firs, it looks like pure gibberish - mixed Japanese and Chinese characters:厉 カ ネ 羊 But looking more carefully, perhaps the idiot started with these characters:励祥But then he decided to switch from horizontal to vertical writing, and then split up the characters at the wrong places,...

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from: Herouth M.to: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:43 AMsubject: [Fwd: Emailing: P1230294.JPG]Hi. I'm from Israel. Love your blog. The story goes like this: I study Japanese for several years now, and I can read about 1400 kanji more or less. One day, my co-worker approaches me with his cellphone. "Can you tell me what this says?"...

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Remember Kinoki, the detox footpad, turned out to be a ripoff?Alan and I present you, Osuke nutritional supplement:For those who are interested, the product's laughable claims are detailed at its website.However, we would like to point the readers to the five characters below OSUKE:行迎友先天The phrase has virtually no meaning in either Chinese or Japanese....

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Another set of Gibberish English-Chinese Font

Alan and I have discovered another set of gibberish English-Chinese font that many people are getting tattooed with. We have compiled this handy-dandy decoder card for those who want to be entertained deciphering gibberish tattoos:DecoderCard.pdfUsing decoder card, this tattoo below is "SABINA", in gibberish of course:http://www.bme.com/tattoo/A91117/high/jph9-untitled-image.jpgUpdate:...

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Good News & Bad News

Well, in the midst of completing the 3rd draft, I shall, with great trepidation, start with the bad - as is customary. There is no way to say it but straight: the release of Monster-Blood Tattoo Book 3 will be delayed until September of next year (2010).*wince*Sorry, sorry, sorry. The fault is mine for the time I have taken to write it. Apologies to everyone for causing any consternation at such a...

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Tattoo Wanita

Tattoo Bunga biasanya sangat disukai para wanita karena keindahan warnan...

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Tattoo Tribal

Design Tattoo Tribal dapat digunakan oleh laki-laki dan wanita Tribal tattoo dapat anda letakkan di kaki, di bagian belakang leher atau tato di tangan, tetapi juga dapat ditempatkan di tempat lain sesuai selera Anda. Tattoo Tribal juga dapat digabungkan dengan desain tato lainnya.Tribal Tattoo I...

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In last night's episode of CSI NY titled "It Happened to Me", there was one scene where detectives were trying to figure out what killed their victims. At first, they thought the cause was these illegally imported insecticide chalk from China found in victim's apartment.(Spoiler alert: No, it was not the insecticide chalk. Victim mismanaged killer's...

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A Rossamünd Costume

Given today is October 31st, I thought a bit of costume action would be appropriate.Ben, 10, the son of a friend of a friend of mine (the faithful and rather clever Sue-Ellen who gets me out of fixes with Latin and Greek) wanted to dress as Rossamünd for his school’s book parade this week. ... And so he did.I think his costume looks rather splendid;...

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from: Haribo S.to: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 7:50 AMsubject: SubmissionHi there.One of my friends posted this on Facebook and claims it says "william beloved son", is this accurate?http://imgur.com/iU0i7.jpgThanks :) love the blogThis is another case of Chinese-Japanese mismatch.威廉 is Chinese phonetic transliteration of "William",...

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Q&A

I'm Allliiivvveee..!Over at Bookface[TM] (where I am I think spending far too much time... maybe) Jane Hart Mason was good enough to ask me:Howdy... I hope you don't mind if I ask you a quick question, and I promise not be hurt if you don't have time to answer, or if it is your rule not to or whatnot. I am working on a little story of my own (not really to publish, just for my kid), and although I...

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from: Anonymousto: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 10:02 PMsubject: Another "Asian font" tattooHi there,Some guy in Facebook is showing off his tattoo.As an avid reader of your site, I know that this tattoo is his name ‘K-H-A-L-E-D’ in the ridiculous ‘Asian font’.I thought you might like to see ...

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from: trellzto: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:13 PMsubject: tatoo submissionShould say stupid American, or stupid foreign person.美国人 is Chinese for "American".However 阿呆 (or あほ) is a localize dialect for "fool, jackass" in Japan's Kansai region. Where most Japanese would use 馬鹿 as "stupid". Also, 米囯人 is Japanese for "American"....

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In the latest issue of Wired magazine, there was a piece titled "10 Best Things We'll Say to Our Grandkids".According to the magazine, English translation for #6 is:"English used to be the dominant language. Crazy, huh?"Dr. Mair and I both noticed the printed Chinese is not correct.统治语言 (dominate language), is two English phrases spliced together...

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from: Victor H. Mairto: tiangotlost@gmail.com,date: Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 12:00 PMsubject: tattooHi Tian, Perhaps you can post this for me on HANZISMATTER. Victor ====== The attached picture, sent to me by Jonathan Smith, shows a basketball player's "Chinese" tattoos. They read 康女宀 from top to bottom: KANG1 ("peace, vigor") NÜ3 ("woman") MIAN2 ("shelter,...

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Who lives where in the Harthe Alle

In an as usually belated response to a continuing question about the inhabitants of the Half-Continent and beyond I have put this map up again but now with all new NUMBERS![TM] by which I intend to answer said query. So here 'tis:1/ Southeastern tip of Nenin, in the continent known as the Occident = Oriental derived cultures;2/ Western coast of Heil,...

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Extra-curricular bogle action

These are by a fellow MBT-er, Ryan Kjolberg, or Kjolbergart as he is known here.He is currently "studying to become a concept artist and wants to ultimately become a movie director" and has taken some time out to do us the honour of working up some bogles of his own.As I said to him in reply, they are "absolutely spot on, the combination of fur and...

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Peter has forward me this interesting story about a woman's tattoo experience."I have four Japanese symbols across my back, gleaned from a Japanese-English dictionary....Yes, it would seem that in our haste, nobody took the semicolon from the dictionary entry out of the design and it now lives for eternity on my skin."http://ittybiz.com/moral-of-the-story-topless-edition-with-photos/Peter...

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No Parallel Importation of Books into Australia

No Parallel Importation of Books into AustraliaYes, I am still banging on about this, and I need to...For those who agree with me that the removal of Parrallel Imporation structures is a bad idea, please, 'sign' the petition linked above - and for those who want to know more about this issue here is a starting point.As for MBT 3, I am currently drawing the last few chapter illustrations, which can...

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from: Amilcar C.to: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 8:08 AMHello,Congrats for the cool blog.A colleague has this tattoo done a couple of years ago and she was told it is suppose to mean “strength”. Does it really mean that or anything else at all?Thanks,Amilcar C.小畜 originated from the book of I Ching, meaning "small accumulating"....

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Factotum 2nd Draft is DONE!

You'd better believe it!The impossible has become the possible.Explicarium and character illos to go...(plus further correcting of a 3rd draft - here's hoping that will not be too great a ta...

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Digital v Analogue

Apparent Technology Luddite warning!(though, in such a medium as a blog this is a nice irony)One of the problems with digital is it is very hard to archive long term, which will bemuse future historians I think. We've had computers in the mainstream for how long now? Maybe 30 years tops; and how many operating systems have we gone through? My the original files of my old stories written on my parents...

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2nd Draft Joy - plus, off topic: Parallel Importation Folly

I am feeling pretty good having just handed in the first 20 chapters of the 2nd draft of Book 3 (with about 7 or so to go) to my editor, Celia, here in Oz. This is a tunnel after all, not the ceaseless dark of endless night I feared. Phew! I was beginning to wonder there...I am also feeling rather bemused because here in Australia our government is contemplating the abolition of Parallel Importation...

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from: Kamato: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 12:51 AMsubject: tattoo requestHanziSmatter site is amazing, great idea :) I love reading it. Chinese and Japanese characters looks great, but I still don't understand why people are tattooing their names in those languages, when they come from German, England or Poland, like me. I guess...

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from: Johanto: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 9:41 PMsubject: Look at this Arrivals sign from SwedenThis is from Arlanda, Stockholm's international airport. They have a lot of these signs.In Sweden, we pride ourselves on being way better than everybody else, by the way.Johan, SwedenIt appears manufacturer of the sign did not have correct...

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Beyond the Half-Continent.

Here is a (very!) rough prototype scribble of the possible formation of landmasses about the Half-Continent, a fair part of the southern lands of the Harthe Alle (snazzed up a bit with fancy computer trickery). This is still an ongoing exploration for me, which keeps things fun.The pallid areas are landmasses, the orange to glaucous the oceans (the...

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Help with translation - Faith, Hope and Love!

from: Erik F.to: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 9:32 AMsubject: Help with translation - Faith, Hope and Love!Hey there!My friend went to Turkey and got himself a tattoo in chinese or japanese. According to him it says "Faith, hope and love", but being the sceptical person I am, I thought I should send a picture to you to verify.Does...

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Rewriting... Or a Contractual Collision

What we have below is two page layout views of the first few chapters of Book 3 (those who know MS Word will know what this is, which is probably most of you). The first is Draft 1, the second Draft 2 with all the changes tracked in red.ADDENDUM as of 1/7/9 ~WELL... the above is what you would have seen, but a contractual issue back o' house has me now removing said images - though they were diagrammatic...

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from: Taija N.to: tiangotlost@gmail.com date: Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:27 AMsubject: TattooHi!I got a tattoo few years ago, when i was young and now I think I really didn't think it through. In tattoo there is cat (looks like a rat), so I started to wonder if the mark with the cat is really real. Does it say anything, is it false?When I took it, it had...

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After Thingy...

Almost two weeks on (!) I surface from the Sea of Words - the Pontus Logia - to say what a swell time I had at Conjecture 2009; met many amazing folk - organisers, readers, writers and editors alike - though no one from here (thank you for asking Portals). Apologies to you Klesita for not letting you know earlier, would have been great to meet you - I could have answered you questions that are still...

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from: David L.to: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 12:11 PMsubject: tattoo meaning Hi, I'm called David Lopez.I'm from Barcelona and I would like to know that it means a tattoo that I did to myself years ago.I believe that it is Chinese and though I did it for aesthetics, now I am afraid of taking a meaning that I don't want.My girlfriend...

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Massachusetts is red(-faced)

Dr. Victor Mair, who wrote about the MaxPlanckForschung Cover Fiasco, points me to another piece in Language Log.Dr. Mair says:Reading the New Yorker on the train this morning, I was struck by the full-page ad following p. 17. When my eye drifted down the page a little, I had a bit of a shock.I could immediately read the four Chinese characters on...

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from: James H.to: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 12:31 PMsubject: Translation of friend's tattooMy friend Trev got this tattoo several years ago and he claims it means "survive". A Japanese woman in a sandwich shop gave us some reason to doubt this when she claimed it does not translate to that but she declined to translate it for...

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Conjecture 2009

I am surfacing from my Pit of Editing [TM] (cesspit, maybe...?) to let those of you in the Adelaide vicinity know that I will be doing a reading and what they call an 'author appearance' on Saturday 6th June (this Saturday!) at this year's Conjecture Spec Fic convention.Details as follows:Saturday 2:30 - 3:301st floor Holiday Inn, Hindley Street, Adelaide...then at 5:30 at same venue I will be helping...

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For those who want to be a complete douche-bag on a Saturday or any other days, perhaps a little karate, this is the shirt for you.Who cares what those characters mean or even if they are correct. When you got this shirt on, you are so badass, even Chuck Norris would cover his nuts.$21.97 at Palmer Cash by Vintage Vanta...

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www.superdry.co.ukAlan forwarded me a link to a British apparel company called Superdry.We are certainly not experts on the subject of brandnaming, but "Superdry" automatically equates to anti-perspirant or deodorant in the world of marketing (Back us up on this, Steve!).The phrase 極度乾燥(しなさい) is very strange in Japanese, especially with しなさい in parentheses.It...

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The stages of editing.

I thought it would be simplest to show you the very beginning of Lamplighter. I will make some comment on each version but will let them speak for themselves - my hope is that when you click on an image it will show it at a better, more readable size.Please, ask any questions you like.As you can see my initial beginning was markedly different from...

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A poll for you...

Just put up another poll for your pondering (just scroll down a bit)... more substantial posting coming so...

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from: Joseph B.to: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:45 PMsubject: Does this tat really mean this?Love your website and had to ask you.The owner of this tat claims it says "Only god will judge me", is this true? I have heard it means something about being a slave??Thanks for your help!!!!JBThe top character may intended to be 大 (large...

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