jfran2258

Today I'm having a savory breakfast of yesterday's leftovers.

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I recently purchased two bento boxes online for my lunch. Here I am using the smaller box for my salad and fresh fruit. One tier of my other box is for the main course.

Food

1/2 mini cucumber
1 guava
3/4 nectarine (78 grams)

side salad w/ dijon mustard dressing

100 g quinoa
120 g vegetable stir-fry
63 g edamame
1 tsp black sesame seeds to make it pretty

Nutrition

calories 438
fat 11g
sodium 449mg
carbs 66g
fiber 16g
sugar 17g
protein 24g

Hummus and Crackers. Cheese flavored popcorn. Cranberry juice.

Dude, all that chick reads is sci-fi/fantasy novels and accounting textbooks. In other words, a nerd.

So anyway I was listening to a book on tape: Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

The premise: A guy is shot in the stomach in the Louve. An alarm has sounded and within minutes the police will be coming. He assumes he will die in exactly 15 to 20 minutes. So he runs over to the Mona Lisa, leaving on a tiny dot of blood and writes a message. Then he goes to another part of the Louve where he strips naked, carves a pentacle in his stomach and writes a cryptic message around his body. All of this to get a secret message to his granddaughter.

Now I have to ask, why didn't he wait for help? Why would a stomach wound necessarily be fatal if he got help quickly? Even if it was, would he really die in 20 minutes? Why not call his granddaughter when the police found him, ask for a cell phone, and leave his cryptic message on her answering machine? Also how was he able to move around so much with a bullet in his stomach. And no blood trail either.

It just seems really improbable to me.

what to write? 

I have been revising one of my conlangs. Originally it had only one nominative case. But over time I was using the direct object case for intransitive arguments. So eventually it looked like my language was becoming ergative. But whether I used the direct object case or the nominative turned out to depend on the amount of control the subject has over an action. Finally, my language morphed into having two nominative cases and a direct object case.

nominative I - used when the A or S has little or no control over the action in question.

Li morta-Ø.
I die-PROG
I am dying.

Li morta-le yo-'o.
I kill-PFV him/her-ACC
I killed him (accidentally).

nominative II - used when the A or S has some control over the action in question.

Li-am morta-le yo-'o.
I-NOM2 kill-PFV him/her-ACC
I killed him (on purpose).

NOM2 is special because while all nouns can be in NOM1, only people and animals can be arguments for NOM2. The only time one might use NOM2 for objects is say for the AI robots or Herbie from "The Love Bug."
As seen from above changing the case can change the meaning of the verb.

Taking the above example, "Liam morta" implies that I am allowing myself to die as opposed to just dying in general. It really doesn't imply suicide which would be:

Liam morta toro.
I am killing myself.

(Tor is the reflexive pronoun indicating the subject is doing something to itself.)

Here are some other examples:

Li palenle. - I fell.

Liam palenle. - I dived.

Yo kosokole. - I forgot.

Yoam kosokole. - I chose to forget.

Kaylee from Firefly. Because she was always in a good mood and seemed ready to try anything fun. Or Emily from The Hollow Kingdom trilogy. For the same reason actually.

I would grow tired of them in only a few days, no matter what I choose.