Jonn Berg

I watched some of the Minnesota Wild / Anaheim Ducks game last night.  The one where the Wild finally started to look like they should have looked in the first 3 games.  It was an excellent game.  However, the officials officially sucked.  There were numerous cheap hits that occured right in front of the refs by Anaheim that were totally ignored.  In fact, the only time it seems that Anaheim was called on a cheap shot was when a ref was knocked on the ice before the Wild player got boarded.

Oh, not that it matters much, but the goal that was taken back probably should not have been taken back.  I was disgusted with the officiating.  As were the announcers.

Heh, that’s funny.  I have a few posts talking about Russian and a couple words in Russian (Cyrillic) and I start seeing some Google Ads that are in Russian….

I was talking with Bob again about Russian and he asked me what I thought “Soviet” means.  I suggested that it was something to do with a person, perhaps from a region.  He said that he had no idea what it means because the meaning in the dictionary is actually recursive.  By recursive, I mean this:

“The word “soviet” naturally extended, or consciously was extended, to mean in effect any body formed by a group of soviets to delegate, up a hierarchy of soviets, the authority to express and effect their will.”

So if a “soviet” is any body formed by a group of “soviets”, what is a soviet?

We eventually found that “soviet” means “council”.  So even though the acronym USSR is “Union of Soviet Socialist Repulics”, it can be literally stated as “Union of Socialist Republic Councils”, although you would never see or hear that stated.  It sounds very feudal and evidently feudalism was in use up to the revolution.

What a lunch hour!  We must be nerds! 

I was talking with my coworker many years ago about my German studies and his Russian studies.  He was a Russian translator in the US Army and I was just a lowly 3rd year German student in high school.  He brought up something funny about the Russian / Engish dictionary that he has.  He said that the Russian word for German sits inbetween some interesting words.  I have transcribed the part of the dictionary with what I believe is the correct pronunciation and meanings:

НЕМEЗЙДА – /Nemezejda/ – Nemesis
НЕМEРКНYЩИЙ – /Nemerknushchaij/ – Never fading, undying
НЕМETb – /Nemete’/ – To be dumbfounded or to become dumb
HЕМEЦ – /Nemets/ – German
НЕМЙЛOCTИBЫЙ – /Nemjelostiveje/ – Ungracious, Unmerciful
НЕМЙЛOCTb – /Nemjeloste/ – Disfavor, Disgrace
НЕМИHYEMЫЙ – /Neminujemij/ – Inevitable, Unavoidable

Like I said above, it’s a conspiracy!

I was opening the mail a few days ago and I came across an envelope from Best Buy.  I had no idea what to think, it didn’t look like the typical flier, so I opened it.  What greeted me was quite a shock!  They sent me a $50 Geek Squad (or Reek Squad as they are also known) gift card.  I was originally excited because I expected that it was just a “Geek Squad” branded Best Buy card, but alas, I was wrong.  It is only good for $50 off of in home, in office, or over the phone service.  Why I would ever need to call for the “Sales People” posing as technicians, I don’t know.  Nor would I even consider giving it as a gift as I would not want to put someone else through that crap.