Coming Up with Resolutions

As the New Year approaches, I'm attempting to come up with resolutions that aren't obvious--for me, those would be "spend less money" and "exercise more"--while those things will also be on my list, I want to add others that will help with self-enrichment, like learning to play another instrument or to speak another language.

I tried learning Czech for a while back in the summer of '08 but then got distracted by other things, so I may have another go at that. Right now I'm obsessed the release of all the hockey Olympic rosters, so I'm going to repost the provisional Team Czech lineup here as a sort of representative of some of my interests (and to show you what Czech names look like):

Goaltenders (Brankáři): Ondřej Pavelec (Atlanta Thrashers/NHL), Jakub Štěpánek (HC Vítkovice Steel), Tomáš Vokoun (Florida Panthers/NHL).

Defensemen (Obránci): Miroslav Blaťák (Salavat Julajev Ufa/KHL), Jan Hejda (Columbus Blue Jackets/NHL), Tomáš Kaberle (Toronto Maple Leafs/NHL), Filip Kuba (Ottawa Senators/NHL), Pavel Kubina (Atlanta Thrashers/NHL), Zbyněk Michálek (Phoenix Coyotes/NHL), Roman Polák (St. Louis Blues/NHL), Marek Židlický (Minnesota Wild/NHL).

Forwards (Útočníci): Petr Čajánek (SKA Petrohrad), Roman Červenka (HC Slavia Praha), Patrik Eliáš (New Jersey Devils/NHL), Martin Erat (Nashville Predators/NHL), Tomáš Fleischmann (Washington Capitals/NHL), Martin Havlát (Minnesota Wild/NHL), Jaromír Jágr (Avangard Omsk/KHL), David Krejčí (Boston Bruins/NHL), Milan Michálek (Ottawa Senators/NHL), Tomáš Plekanec (Montreal Canadiens/NHL), Tomáš Rolinek (Metallurg Magnitogorsk/KHL), Josef Vašíček (Lokomotiv Jaroslavl/KHL).

(from Hokej.cz)

It makes me happy that Milan Michálek (a former Shark) and his brother Zbyněk both made the team, but I digress. The various marks, as you can probably guess, indicate pronunciation changes. For example, "Z" sounds like the English Z, "S" sounds like S and "C" sounds like "ts", but Ž becomes "zh", Č is "ch" and Š is "sh". Pronouncing the words is fun to me, but I started getting confused when I was introduced to different endings of nouns, which I unfortunately can't explain right now as I haven't quite been able to understand it.

I considered posting more rosters and attempting to write stuff about them (i.e. "Slovakia: The Occasional Reminder that Anze Kopitar is Slovenian, That's Why He's Not on This Team"), but while I love watching hockey, my knowledge is limited. Another thing to work on next year, perhaps.

Whatever your resolutions or plans are, I wish you all a Happy New Year and all the best in 2010.

I scared myself yesterday. (or 'the krelbow story')

I was watching Project Runway with the family last night, and I commented that one of Jillian's coats was pretty awesome except for the cutouts where the insides of the elbows are (they might have been around the elbows as well, but I'm not sure). Dad asked me if there was a word for the inside of your elbow, and I kind of shook my head, but then I remembered the term "krelbow". Furthermore, I remembered that I had heard "krelbow" on an episode of Blossom, and I proceeded to describe the scene in detail...detail good enough to scare me. Why the hell did my memory retain that piece of information?

In doing web research this evening, I came across a post from a couple of years ago where someone was asking which episode of Seinfeld contained krelbow discussion. I wonder if she too really heard it on Blossom.

words & phrases I probably say too much

"Nice."
"I'm just sayin'."
"I don't even know, dude." (alt: "Dude, I don't even know.")