You get what you pay for...translation-wise!

The caption to this photo from Spiegel reads:

Die Demonstrationen in Städten wie New York und die starke Unterstützung, die Bush im Landesinneren genießt, spiegeln die Spaltung der öffentlichen Meinung in den USA wider.

FreeTranslation.com renders the following:

The demonstrations in cities as well as New York and the strong support that bush in the country interiors enjoys reflect the split of the public opinion in the USA against.

I can't make too much sense of it, past correcting the English to read "Demonstrations in cities such as New York ..."

In any event, I am torn between thinking that the demonstrator intended the sign to be a caricature of anti-war sentiment or whether it was intended seriously. I'm leaning toward the former.

Cheers...

Still quiet...

My friend Feht says he starts to experience paranoia after a two-day period without work. I am not quite to that point yet, but I have to say this has been a pretty quiet month. I spoke with Feht the other day and we chewed the fat for a while, wondering if the Iraq war was going to affect our end of the translation business much.

For sure, the loss of Columbia has eaten into some of my work. My spies down in Houston tell me that everything is pretty much on hold, translation-wise, with only a small trickle of routine correspondence being processed.

As far as the rest of the work stream is concerned, I find it hard to believe that the war is affecting it at all. I don't believe Russia's decision to oppose the United States on this issue is going to affect current or future contracts (there's too much money to be made, on both sides). I just have to find a way to land a direct client or two.

So... I'll just go with the flow for a while. And make some calls.

* * *In other news, I've been doing fairly well on the pursuit-of-financial-literacy front, at least from the perspective of lining up my bills and getting a better handle on my Incredible Shrinking Checking Accounts.

* * *Talking about chess, I got an e-mail from an old acquaintance from the time I lived in Jacksonville, and he sent along a photo of me and Augusto S., from the time we played on the same team during a U.S. Amateur Team Tournament (1986). Here it is:



Augusto is in the foreground; the bearded gent in the background is me. I find it curious, after the fact, to note that we were so formal in those days (both of us in suits... wow).

Cheers...