Friday, February 16, 2007

It's a late post tonight, but I had a very important paper due at 11:45 - which is RIGHT NOW - that had to be done. I wrote on the use of visual devices in William Joyce's A Day With Wilbur Robinson. This is one of my long time favorite books, and it was a pleasure to research. But writing it was a different story. I've been behind all week in classes, couple that with the daily work in addition to assignments I was looking at a rough couple of days no matter how I sliced it.
But the paper is done, and that's the important thing. Right?
Nope, sorry.
You see, earlier in the week we were uploading files for the class. And I screwed up the filename. Im not very good with the CTools system that we use for uploading, I guess that's my defense.
Anyway, I was told to basically 'don't screw up again.'
Well, I did. I messed up the filename again. Hopefully, I will be forgiven.

Tomorrow I have to do a presentation on Viking Ships. Hopefully I can get it finished up before 11am tomorrow. At the moment I am watching the Fifth Element - which I have never seen in it's entirety. So far, it's the coolest thing to happen to me all night. I wanted to go out with Kris tonight and get post-Valentine's Day candy, but I just have too much to do.

That's all kind of a downer isn't it?
Let's go to the Mailbag.

In the commentary from the last blog 'Barb' asks, "why is it called Green-land? Was someone being funny?"

Actually, yes. Or rather, someone was pulling a con job on the Norweigans and the Icelanders. The actual discovery and colonization of Greenland is recorded in the Vinland Sagas, which I have to present for a class tomorrow! How convenient! Eirik the Red, son of Thorvald, left Norway because of some killings. In Iceland, Eirik was given outlawry for other troubles and decided that he should go on an ocean voyage. Eirik constantly discovers Greenland. As it is written in the Grænlendiga Saga, page 50, Eirik "named the country he discovered Greenland, for he said that people would be much more tempted to go there if it had an attractive name."
Aren't the Icelandic Sagas fantastic? Everyone should read them. You can read more about the Norse discovery of North America in The Vinland Sagas.

'Aunt Julie' wrote, "You were leafing through a Popular Mechanics from 1953??? Were you in Back to the Future?"

No, but I was spending a cozy evening in the Gargoyle office! There's nothing funnier than old Popular Mechanics, and we draw on them often as a comedic source. Serously, I need to scan some of those - they are awesome!

Alright, back to work. I've got a lot of learning to do about viking Long Ships.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know why The Fifth Element is a great movie? There are two reasons. One is Gary Oldman. The other is the phrase "meat popsicle".

Anonymous said...

The population of Greenland was 56,000+ in 1998; I guess a two mile thick chunk of ice made more of an impression than an attractive name. An early and log-running advertising failure.

How was your long-boat presentation? Did it have visual aids and sound effects?

What in tophet is the name of this class?

Anonymous said...

loNg-running