Remembering the releases of Beatles albums is a dangerous countdown – the upside is that I still remember; the downside that the numbers get bigger and bigger. The so-called White Album, a title-less double album, was released on November 22, 1968. Never before had a mixture of songs been so strange. It wasn’t one of my favorite Beatles albums – already too far gone, I thought. I have my original (numbered) copy in the safely stowed away vinyl collection. Haven’t listened to the vinyl in years, so I don’t know if it is still usable. One of these days…

Following Sarah Dillon’s (There’s Something About Translation) Twitter updates, I learned that

1. It is hot in Brisbane,
2. Jost Zetzsche has (well, had) a session today at the Translator as Strategic Partner Conference in London with the topic “Does quality spell usability?”  and
3. I should prepare before attending a conference.

more…

There are translators who work in-house and those who work on their own (there are also those who actually have a completely different job but translate on the side, but I am not talking about them here). I have done both for long stretches of time. Whenever there is a slump in my freelance work flow, I imagine how wonderful my monthly paychecks were back then. Whenever I realize that I am romanticizing my in-house years too much, I try to remember the mind-numbing routines I had to engage in and the stupid requests of my supervisors born out of total lack of understanding of my work. On top of it, it wasn’t really a 9-to-5 job. When deadlines had to be met, I staid way into the night and went to work on Saturdays and Sundays.
more…

Für alle, die das immer noch nicht geschnallt haben (und das sind eine ganze Menge):

 
(via BeF’s Soup)

I decided to start the week by cleaning up my blog roll. Yes, I still use this quaint tool (on top of a feed reader) so that linked blogs are indexed in search engines. If they are only listed in feed readers they go unnoticed.

My blog roll has 56 entries, of which 20 blogs are displayed, at random, in the sidebar on the right. Over time, some of these have ceased to exist or changed or have not been updated for long periods. Time to prune.

Antipixel – Jeremy Hedley’s blog has not been updated since September of 2006. You can still visit it.

BFW734.com – Adam’s blog (formerly Bluesocks in Tokyo). Gone.

Carob (a blog) – Robin Stock’s blog has not been updated since May 2007. You can still visit it.

Cerebral Soup – MJ’s blog has morphed several times and is now something like Quake Watch Japan.

Found in Translation – Ryan Coleman’s website doesn’t seem to be a place where I pick up information that interests me very often.

The Language Legend – E-Julie ended posting in January 2006. I kept hoping she would reconsider. She didn’t. Her blog is still up.

linklogbuch – Bettina Winterfeld’s blog has not been updated since January 2008. I’ll keep it under observation.

Lost in Transit – This expat-authored blog had been troubled by dwindling participation and finally closed down.

Mehrzweckbeutel – A multi-author blog which I enjoyed a great deal while it lasted. Its URL has been producing an error message for months.

Metroblogging Tokyo – At one point a relatively lively place with posts about things Tokyo. Then paralysis set it. Last post from December 2007.

Tequila Mockingbird – Julia’s blog had come to standstills before and each time she miraculously revived it. Such great stories! But I’m afraid it is the end this time. The last post is of May 2007. It is still up.

ADDENDUM
Reading this list, another sad loss comes to mind: Open Brackets. It closed down in November 2006. A thoroughly enjoyable blog, written by Canadian translator Gail Armstrong who lived (lives?) in France. It is still up, and if you haven’t read it, hurry before it is too late. Don’t miss going back to the beginning (see my earlier post).

See and hear Stephen Fry:

After a week of USA Today in the conference hotel I spent a leisurely morning reading, nay studying, the Los Angeles Times, ads included. On page A15 I found a ⅓-page advertisement by The Foreclosure Coach, telling readers about the great bargains of buying foreclosed homes directly from the bank. Since we are looking for a home, I’m interested in anything real-estate and I read the ad. Knowing a little bit about subprime mortgages and some of the reasons behind the present tsunami of foreclosures, I was glad to see that it is business as usual:

Find Out How You Can Buy Foreclosures Direct From the Bank With No Money Down and No Credit at This FREE Workshop!

So if you sign up for one of their workshops, you will find out how to buy foreclosed property directly from the bank “with No Money Down, No credit, No W2’s, No tax returns, and No qualifying.”

What are we waiting for?

I must admit that more recently I have felt on occasion that blogging was so five minutes ago – but then my daughter comes to mind and the fact that she almost refuses to use e-mail because it is so cumbersome compared to a quick SMS, and I think that while it would be great to be forced to limit oneself to 140 characters in many situations, there are cases where I would like to digress, add a photo, go on a rant. So it may be as Wired put it:

The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge.

I still don’t want to do without the format, however. Read Blogging Is Dead, or So They Say for more on the subject.

It always happens at the most inopportune moments – the commenting function of this blog seems to be broken and just when I am waiting for the shuttle to take me to the airport. If you have the strong urge to comment, please remember what you wanted to say. I’ll get to it as soon as I am back in my office tomorrow. Apologies.

Comments are working again. For now.

Susanne Aldridge III
of the self-titled blog
looking for the
Masked Translator

Blogging finally seems to have arrived in the translator universe. Corinne McKay’s (Thoughts on Translation) session yesterday on blogging was well attended (I am attending the ATA’s annual conference at the moment) and had a lively exchange of questions and answers at the end. During the Welcome Reception on Wednesday, Eve Bodeux interviewed attendees for her next podcast on Speaking of Translation. Yesterday noon there was a “blog lunch” which brought together blogging translators, and last night in the lobby bar, a gaggle of blogger translators could be found speculating on the identity of the Masked Translator who is believed to be attending the conference as well.

Judy Jenner (l) of Translation Times and
Abigail Dahlberg (r) of
Dispatches From an
Environmental Translator’s Desk

There have been translator and translation blogs for a long time. I remember (and miss) some that were around when I started five years ago and that have since disappeared. And there are many more than I have in my blog roll or feed reader. What is different this time at the Orlando conference is that there seems to be, for the first time, a critical mass of blogging translators inside ATA, enough to make it a subject of sessions and to inspire colleagues to go out and read blogs – and perhaps try their own hand in blogging.