Anyway Poly, I meant it's very hard to look up the strokes in the dictionary. Japanese dictionaries order kanji by stroke count and that's not easy, besides you'd still have a huge pile of kanji to peer at even if you find the right amount of strokes. It's possible that they're ordered by stroke order (there's a strict order in which the lines need to be written in Japanese characters) but I haven't mastered that yet.

Welcome to our new member Mike!

Anyway, still not much happening here...

Good luck DED, there's nothing wrong with taking a stand. More of us should do it.

So, Bonny, you've looked up and found all five symbols now? Can you remind me what they mean?

Here it is...

Quote: Originally posted by BBP

Quote: Originally posted by BBP   Aaaanyway last night I spent the entire length of the Zoot Allures album trying to find the five kanji FZ used to attempt to spell his name. Couldn't find the last one. Blast. The first character is pronounced Fu and means dis- or un-, etc; The second is pronounced Ran and means civil war or riot; The third is pronounced Ku and means pain or anxiety; The fourth was a lot harder to find and is pronounced either Zatsu or Zo and means rough. Foreign names and words are spelled using Katakana in Japanese: Frank Zappa spells フランク・ザッパ. I found the fifth one yesterday. Reason I couldn't find it before is it seems to miss a few strokes. But it looks like Ha or Pa, meaning sect. (few kanji (and few Japanese words) start with P anyway. )

I miss Pappawas1975 around here. He used to live in Japan, IIRC.

Ahso.

"So" in Japanese is a strong yes you'd use to indicate a person's right, sort of like "indeed". Can also be used as question word "really?".

Not enough people use the word "indeed".

That is the only Japanese phrase I know and I learnt it as a kid watching shows about Ninjas and Samurais. Even though they were overdubbed in English there was one Ninja in particular who when something complicated had just been explained to him would blurt out "Ahso!!" very enthusiastically. I knew that it didn't just mean yes.

Useful Japanese terms:
(when pronouncing these, bear in mind that Japanese doesn't have stressed syllables like English)
arigatoo - thank you
This phrase is short for "doomo arigatoo gozaimasu", a simple "doomo" can also be used for "thank you" in colloquial speech

doozo - there you are

kudasai - please, placed at the end of a sentence
onegai - bigger please, placed in front of a sentence
watashi no niwa ni murasaki zou ga imasu - there's a purple elephant in my garden

Matte Kudasai, King Crimson, Discipline

Mate means "wait". It's a term I picked up from the Dutch comic Douwe Dabbert when I was, like, 12 or something, and you can hear it a lot in Miyazaki films. I remember hearing it in the Japanese Ponyo thinking "hey, it really means "wait!" I thought they were just doing something with that comic!"

Turns out that, for Douwe Dabbert, Thom Roep did some thorough research after making the mistake that whales don't eat polar bears in a comic about the North Pole. Particularly his research on the pirates comic that came after that is as impressive as the beautiful vessels Piet Wijn drew for them.

Soooo... Done anything interesting lately? Me, I'm drawing again.

I'm doing some physics revision and enjoying it. Lectures start in the first week of March. I'm continuing to write music and practice guitar. I'm pretty close to nailing Echidna's Arf now. I'm still a bit rough on the top notes of that ascending thing near the end.

Nice! I love that tune!
On bass I'm perfecting the Eat That Question-riff.

Quote: Originally posted by BBP

Nice! I love that tune! On bass I'm perfecting the Eat That Question-riff.

let's hear that.

Sure!

Yesterday was Valentine's. I hate that. Went to the market place and got a rose from a political party. As I walked back to my bike, I noticed the cute guy from the zaziki stall was standing outside his little booth, and in an impulse I gave him my rose.

Today there was a CD fair I went to. Did not find any Dir en grey. They did have other interesting stuff, likeCorrie En De Grote Brokken (sounds familiar huh?) and Tom Waits, but after two hours of digging through unsorted boxes I didn't much feel like buying anything.

Quote: Originally posted by BBP

"So" in Japanese is a strong yes you'd use to indicate a person's right, sort of like "indeed". Can also be used as question word "really?". Not enough people use the word "indeed".

You can use "indeed" too much though IMO. My brother uses it all the time, rather than the just saying "yes". It makes him sound a bit pseudo, which he isn't really.

Quote: Originally posted by BBP

Corrie En De Grote Brokken (sounds familiar huh?)

Surprised this didn't get any more reactions. Come on, this is the missing track 6 on Grand Wazoo!