I guess this is a good pace for me...

I ran eight miles today, like a whole minute and a half faster than the last time I ran eight miles. It was hard.

I mean, aside from being hard because of the whole "eight miles" thing. Other than that.

Just a little bit of BSG soundtrack squeeing

The Battlestar Season 4 soundtrack is even BETTER when I read the liner notes and find the translated lyrics. "All of this has happened before / And all of this will happen again / So say we all" in LATIN? Score.

And "The Cult of Baltar" ends with "Gaius Baltar, our divine savior, / Now and for eternity. / So say we all." In Anglo-Saxon. Is this not the most awesome TV soundtrack ever?

::Hums away, oblivious to any dissenters.:: <-- Which is good, since she might have to hurt them if she heard them being mean to her Precious. If, you know, they exist. Ooh, she could force them to LISTEN to it. That would take care of any problems. Especially if she also made them watch the show, first. Muahahaha!!!

Uh, yeah.

So, it's really good. Really very quite good. ::Backs away. Humming.::

Oh, one more thing: I have to listen to it even more to be completely sure of which are all my favorite tracks (especially for the purely instrumental work, i.e most of them, one track can bleed into another if you're not paying attention, doing something else while you listen... and there's just So Much), but so far I'm especially fond of "Gaeta's Lament" (duh, if you've seen any of my facebook posts or tweets about it), "Resurrection Hub," "Elegy," "Kara Remembers" (almost a spoiler warning for the video's title and description, but it isn't exactly, would actually mislead you if you hadn't watched the season... but for those who are picky, spoiler warning!), and "Kara's Coordinates" (SPOILER warning in the video's description, though, for real this time!). And, okay, "Diaspora Oratorio" (especially "Brothers and Sisters / Enemies and Friends / Embrace / For we have come home / Yet I weep / Not for the fallen / But for the unforgiven"). Ooh, and "Goodbye Sam" (she says, as the track in question begins to play on the CD player behind her head). Ooh, that's right, "So Much Life." Quite possibly "An Easterly View"... I'm a sucker for any inclusion of certain themes back into new tracks. And Bear McCreary does it so well. Sigh. And of course I have to finish off the list with the last track, "The Passage of Time," short though it is. So... basically what I'm saying is that I ESPECIALLY like ALL of the end of disc two. Uh-huh.

Hey, there's 34 tracks on these two discs. If you think I haven't narrowed it down... well, you're wrong. That's all. (Because I picked LESS THAN A THIRD. So there.)

Um, one last thing. The lyrics given with the video of "Gaeta's Lament" are also slightly wrong. ("This is wrong, too.") Here they are, as capitalized and punctuated and line-breaked and spelled in the liner notes:

"Alone, she sleeps in the shirt of man,

With my three wishes clutched in her hand.

The first, that she be spared the pain,

That comes from a dark and laughing reign.

When she finds love, may it always stay true,

This I beg, for the second wish I made too.

But wish no more, my life, you can take,

To have her, please, just one day wake

To have her, please, just one day wake..."

Crap Half-Marathon-Runners-in-Training Say

Have I mentioned I'm going to run a half marathon? At the end of March?

Um, well, I'm not.

No seriously, I'm not. I waited too long and the race is full, I can't register anymore. (Cue expression of Deep Shame.)

I think I shall pick another race on a different date and keep training. Maybe. It's fun.

So yeah, I'm a nerd and I like physical activity of some kind. Sue me. But hey, if you're a nerd and you're going to enjoy a sport, running is the way to go. It's got to be the nerdiest of all the mainstream, offered-in-high-school options. So... it doesn't damage my nerd street cred too much.

Plus, I use phrases like "nerd street cred" with a completely straight face, and it is so inappropriate. I've got to be a nerd.

Not that anyone was doubting. Maiden name and all that.

Er'hrm.

So... I'm training for this half marathon thing I'm not actually doing after all. And... you know how sometimes my own reactions to things kinda crack me up? Well, I'm not sure this'll be very funny to non-runners, but I'm definitely going to tag those of you I know are also training for a half. And some other runners I know who are not training, to make sure I got it right and I'm not just making running jokes. Though... I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's ever said some of this stuff.

If you find yourself saying crap like this, you might be training for a half marathon:

"Just a little four-mile run."

"Woah! I broke a twelve-minute mile pace! That's my fastest yet!"

"Oh noes! I need to wait for my phone to finish charging so I can use that app with the GPS that tracks my distance and pace, and the battery runs down faster with the GPS on, but soon it'll be dark and if I do that one run on the dirt paths I might twist my ankle in a rut, but I don't want to do a long run on sidewalk, that's bad for my knees..."

"See, I like this app because I can take my fastest pace for a given distance, and make sure I hold myself back to that pace for the first several miles."

"You know those giant hills on Rosecrans, past Beach? Yeah, I ran up those."

"I don't like driving to Arby's, it's farther out of the way than any of the other fast food places around here." "Yeah, so I was running past Arby's, and..."

"My shoe came untied again! Dang it, I just retied you an hour ago. Sorry, I'm not tying you again until I'm done. You're just gonna have to wait."

"I really like eating a mixture of golden raisins and Cheerios on the longer runs."

"That was a long run, I'm tired. __ Quick! I need 300-400 calories with a 4:1 carb to protein ratio!"

"Blast it all, I need to go to the bathroom and I have at least an hour left in my run! Thank God for park restrooms and the pause button on the app!"

"I'm supposed to do Gentle Pickups at the end of this workout. I think I'll drive to Biola. If I run from Biola to home and back, I can do the GP on the track, but if I run to Biola and back I'll have to run them back and forth in front of my apartment complex."

"Do you think if I got some kind of holster for my phone and ran the app while playing Ultimate Frisbee, it could tell me afterwards how many miles I ran and what my average pace was?"

"My goal is just to finish the race without injuring myself. __ And if I could do it in under three hours, that'd be nice, too."

"These are a few of my least favorite things..."

Wait, that's not how it goes.

Shh, don't tell anyone, but I sort of cordially loathe passing on messages. (Though I'll adamantly deny it to your face, if you have a message for my passage. Maybe that's why people keep... oops.) Perhaps I shouldn't be a secretary. But it's not as big a part of my job description as one might think. Most of the time. >_>

It could be a lot worse. After I thought about posting this I dreamed I was asked to pass on a message that Mom had died. So, um, yeah. Worse.

At first I thought I dreamed Mom died. True, but "that's not all, oh no, that's not all." No, I was asked over the phone to tell someone else, and that was how I found out. That seems significant.

Though what it signifies beyond "Oh, crap, sucky nightmare," I'm not sure.

Sometimes the subconscious is a little too good at combining inputs and creating storylines. If you ask me.

Narcissism

Ain't it fun?

Um. As you can see, if you aren't in an RSS reader and you pay attention to these sorts of things, I've tweaked a few of my page elements. I've added the lovely Tolkien quote at the top of the page, and then moved the "About Me" to the side, as it wasn't playing nicely otherwise. (There's symbolism in there, somewhere?)

I added "Currently reading:", though if you have an adblocker, you may need to disable it on this page to see what I'm currently reading. That's what I had to do. ("Why isn't it working? Why does it hate me? __ Oh.")

I probably won't update what I'm currently reading every time I start a new book, but I'd like to change it at least once a week. That's the plan. Every time I change it I'll link to the last book I was reading that I haven't yet finished (on this readthrough). Because I'm highly distractible, even when it comes to my Biggest Addiction (books, duh), so the last thing I started will probably change quite a bit, whereas finishing the books is slightly less common. Though of course it happens all the time, too.

Book reviews, now... I should get back to doing more of those.

La, la la...

Unless the last book I started is Highly Embarrassing. I reserve the right not to tell you I'm reading a book if I don't want to tell you I'm reading a book. But that probably won't be very common.

I added the "Popular Posts" widget. Here's where I feel especially narcissistic. But I'm hoping that if strangers wander onto my blog, it will help them to find some of my best writing. I hope. It feels... a little idealistic. (Strangers? Here? Where?)

And if they're so popular as all that, do they really need the extra promotion?

Yes, they do. I know that from bookselling, and bestsellers.

I'd actually played with the idea of creating a page for my most popular posts before I saw there was a widget. I was thinking of updating it every month. For the fun. Even though it seems a little silly. I guess I'll let Blogger do it, instead.

There are also a couple issues with the stats, though nothing very serious. These are supposed to be my "all time" ten most popular posts, but Blogger's stats started in May 2009, whereas my blog started in December 2004. The tendency is for each post to get the most hits right after I publish it, so... meh. I hope my readership has gradually grown, which renders that... at least slightly moot.

Can something be "slightly moot?"

And then secondly, the posts that were imported to facebook have a disadvantage, compared to the ones where I only put a link on facebook. Since people didn't have to click through to my blog when a post imported, in order to read the thing. But again, meh.

If I had created a page for my popular posts, I also thought about "featuring" an eleventh post every month, one that I felt wasn't getting as much attention as it deserved. But meh. And then featuring some excellent post from my Google Reader, alternating the blog it would come from. You know, to make me feel better. About the narcissism. And every time I updated, I could also write a post for it, to have a history of some of the ups and downs and features and such... I am so idealistic. I so wouldn't have done all of that. I mean... I would, I would! It would be fun!

And then the rest of my page elements remain the same, below the popular posts. For now. I do intend to update my blogroll at some point (I want to make it more closely reflect what's in my Google Reader), and maybe start tags for my book reviews (native tags, not LibraryThing tags), possibly all prefaced by "book review:" in order to keep them all together in the labels. Unless I can figure out a better way. I want sub-tags, dang it!

"These are a few of my favorite things..."

And by "things," I mean "words." Or maybe my favorite things are words. Well, at least a few of my favorite things are.

Hey, you were warned, I told you Quettandil means Word Lover. And not only that, but it's Quenya for Word Lover. Which means I don't just love words, I love them so much I need a fictional language to express my love. Yeah.

And Melanie had already taken Book Lover in Quenya, Parmandil.

It's funny to me now that I once thought I loved words in foreign languages, and of course I loved books, but English words weren't anything special. Ha. That was never true. Well... maybe when I was three? I doubt it. I'm still much more interested in foreign languages than in using my linguistics training for various applications in English, but... that's not the same thing.

Anyway, on to the point.

Last month Shannon Hale did a lovely "These are a few of my favorite words" post. She asked us to give her words we love in the comments, "Words you like the look of, words you like to taste on your tongue, words whose meanings are unique and fun, whatever you like."

I commented several times.

I sort of tried not to. But then I'd comment, and then I'd think of more... I probably just should've collected them all on paper, first, but I was Excited. Asked for my favorite words! What an opportunity! My brain wouldn't turn off. After the commenting I drove down the highway with my voice recorder at hand, to catch the words flitting by.

Ooh, "flitting."

I digress.

Yay, "digress!"

It occurred to me that I really should do my own post about favorite words. Because, I mean, I named my blog Quettandil. And... yeah. It'd not only be appropriate, but also FUN and EASY.

I knew my favorite favorite favoritest words, the awesomest words ever. But reading other people's comments and thinking about it, I remembered there are other fun words too, words I do like the sound or feel of, words I like to play with even if I don't devote entire blog posts to just them and them alone. Er, half blog posts.

I shall start with them and work up to the most awesomest awesome EVAR. (Ironic that in a blog post about favorite words I keep repeating other words over and over, even if they really aren't my favorites... um.)

Actually, I shall start with some fun words that other commenters on Shannon Hale's post got to before I made it to the party (okay, so I wouldn't have thought of all of them without their help, but they are Good Words and I Approve):

Scrumdiddlyumptious (I don't see it in the dictionary, but it ought to be.)

Miffed

Wombat

Serendipity

Pernicious

Specificity

Discombobulate

Conundrum

Snarky

Persnickety

Kerfuffle

Superfluous

Whimsy

Squelch

Laconic ("Once, in flight school, I was even laconic.")

Tintinnabulation

Gesticulate

Genuflect

Mellifluous

Viscous

Indubitably

Fortuitous

Plethora

Ubiquitous

And some great ones people posted after me, so I obviously didn't think of them, but they ought to be included with my favorite words, really I just forgot:

Irk

Abscond

Despicable

Fickle

Words from my voice recorder, after I gave up on commenting: A few of these are ones other people said before me -- the difference is, I love these words so much, I wouldn't mind being repetitious, I'd post them anyway. Either that, or, well, I was driving, and I couldn't remember for sure what had already been said.

Credulous

Swashbuckle

Deleterious

Detritus

Plenary

Irascible

Prodigious

Quibble

Curmudgeon

Crotchety (Especially in that one episode of Babylon 5... "This cannot be a real word.")

Scallywag

Equivocate

Quiescent

Perfidy and perfidious

Sensical (Dictionaries will be adding it any day now, just you wait.)

Twiddle

Prognosticate

Pontificate

Prevaricate

Salubrious

Circumnavigate

Bric-a-brac

Gallivant

Mosey ("Plus he gets bonus points for using the word 'mosey.'")
Toodle-oo

Poppycock

Criminy

Supercilious

Suboptimal

Superoptimal

Morpheme

Onomatopoeia

And finally, the words I actually posted in my original comments. In roughly reverse order.

Obtuse

Obfuscate

Eschew

Eschew obfuscation.

Solstice (Especially because of Marian Call's song "Perilous Road" and the phrase therein, "the sad solstice sun.")

Misanthropy

Vociferous

Fricative

Deciduous

Eccentricity

Epitome

Ululation

Cacophony ("That's pretty, what's it mean?")

Bibliophile

Soporific (Thank you, Beatrix Potter... and my mother.)

Somnambulating (Marian Call again, awesome use in "Coffee by Numbers.")

Hyperallergenic (Yeah, I made that up. I have a hyperallergenic pie I make sometimes. It's delicious.)

Couth (Normally "uncouth," but dictionary.com does recognize "couth," and even includes a sample phrase of "to be lacking in couth." There you have it.)

Disambiguate

Incorrigible

Disreputable

Abominable

And now we're getting to my few favoritest favorite. Before we do that, so as not to be anti-climactic later... LET'S SWITCH LANGUAGES! No really. It'll be fun. Pleeeeaaase? Hey, I'm the one writing this blog post, and I decide. We're doing it.

In Spanish:

Calabazas (Squashes, as in pumpkins and such.)

Anteojitos (Spec-tacles! Come to think of it, I also like the word "spectacle." Whether that's in spite of Peter's mockery of my glasses, or thanks to. "Anteojitos" is the diminutive of "anteojos," or "before-eyes," or "glasses.")

Rascacielos (Scrapes-heavens. Er, um, sky-scraper.)

Rompecabezas (Breaks-heads. A puzzle.)

Osos mohosos (Moldy bears. Who wouldn't love moldy bears, let alone rhyming moldy bears?!)

Hablaba (Was talking. Blah, blah, blah, blah...)

In Japanese:

[I might be spelling a few of these wrong, as I learned them via audio lessons, but I'm pretty familiar with the standard romaji (Roman alphabet) spellings and rules, so I think if there are things I have wrong, it's mostly in where to put the word divisions -- sometimes there isn't a big difference between a suffix and a particle.]

Chotto

Kawaii (Because. No, I'm not saying that's what it means... never mind.)
Kara (Uh, 'cause of the above... this one actually does mean "because." And it goes at the end of the sentence, and it has a nice sound, all open and fully pronounced as AW vowels, but still choppy and short at the end, and with that nice little flip of the tongue on the "r.")
-chan (Does that count? Of course it does. I say so.)
Chiisai
Hajimemashite (I love Japanese words. They have such wonderful sounds, they just roll off the tongue. After a bit of practice. They're a little tricky if you're not familiar with Japanese pronunciations, but I'd be happy to say them for you, anytime. Just ask. Or don't, I still might. As Melanie said, "I feel like you're a CD.")
Arigatou gozaimashita (A past tense of thank you, for thanking someone about something completed, like having you over for dinner last night, a thing that is very important to remember to do the next day. Thank them, I mean. The next day.)
Shichi ji ni (A phrase, not a word, but the combination of sounds is so great! The first "i" is barely pronounced. It means, "at seven o' clock.")

Otokonoko
Nomimono
Watashi tachi wa
Shimashita
Ikimashoo

And a couple others from a phonetics class that I can't spell without the International Phonetic Alphabet. I don't remember what languages they're from. But trust me when I say they are AWESOME. One... would be something like, "amagomamumu," but the first and last two "m"s are "voiceless," kind of like a whisper (in practice, like you're sniffing out your nose in the middle of the word...), and those two "u"s are nasal. And the other one... if you pretend my upside down question marks are glottal stops (the sound in "uh-oh" between "uh" and "oh"), it'd be wa¿aha¿ayo¿o. IIRC. And one of those two, no joke, means "don't laugh." Seriously. I think the other is "two barrels of sour cream," unless that was what that other word meant, the one I can't remember because I couldn't pronounce it, with all the ejectives and consonant clusters.

And now.

MY FAVORITE WORDS:

Oligoglot (Dictionary.com doesn't have it. This is why dictionary.com is so, so depressed. Not only does a book by the name of Le Ton beau de Marot have it, it also has a chapter entitled "How Jolly the Lot of an Oligoglot." Causing me to fall in love. With the word and the book.)

Transmogrify (Calvin and Hobbes, of course. Via Ron.)

Spelunker (Via Ron.)

Antepenultimate (Remains my most popular post by far, whether I link to it or not. Though really, it contains a sad missed opportunity -- instead of saying, "the antepenultimate syllable," I should've said "the antepenult." Since that's a word, too.)

Defenestrate

Apokolokyntosis

I'd worry that I built this up too much and made it anti-climactic, but really. Apokolokyntosis! (Uh, yeah, that link is different than the last one. And now that I click on the link from the link, I remember that really it should go on "defenestrate," not "apokolokyntosis," but there is a connection, so... Uh, it makes sense. Really.)

Now, because there are so many delicious, savory, delightful words out there, I'm sure I've missed some important ones, even after this lengthy list.

What are some of your favorite words?