Lifegems

LifeGem...

Love. Life's single greatest risk. Life's single greatest reward. Love captures your heart in a second and holds it for eternity.

You have known the feeling of pure joy and elation, and it will be forever cherished. Love is more than a memory.

You have experienced a love without equal. You have had someone truly special in your life and mere words simply will not do.

Love knows no boundaries. Love knows no end.

So, let's make a gemstone out of the carbon from your dead loved one's body.

That's right. We now travel to Elk Grove Village, Illinois where LifeGem® is creating certified high-quality diamonds from the carbon of your loved ones as a memorial to their unique life.

What's more, it is no longer necessary to use the cremated remains of an entire body. LifeGem's patented technology now requires only a lock of hair to harvest all the required carbon.

What does this mean?

It is now possible to create LifeGems from locks of hair around the world, including famous locks of hair.

If you're interested, check out Project Beethoven Lifegem, where three LifeGems, fashioned from the carbon of Beethoven's hair, will be auctioned off to buy LifeGems for the less fortunate.

How they got Beethoven's hair I don't want to know.

But I think it's kinda cool. I think.


But don't take my word for it:

All I can say is putting my husband’s death into something with so much LIFE was the best move I cold have ever made. All my love to you and anyone who had a hand in my husbands Death and rebirth......Elizabeth Hile Needham, Wife.

Gray had a great sense of humour and joked that not only would I be able to take him with me wherever I went – I would also be able to nag him- I do too! Initially I had reservations but knew how much it meant to Gray so I went ahead with his wishes. I’m so glad I did. I had the stone set in a ring and I never take it off. It’s the most beautiful thing I own and I joke that he hasn’t lost his sparkle......Mary Sikes, Wife.

Thank you so very much...it is absolutely stunning. I opened the box, and there it was..the exact color of my mother's eyes!.......Meredith Deming, Daughter.

We want to thank you for giving us this gift just before the one year anniversary of Hannah's birthday into Heaven.......Susi Rowley, Mother.


And if you're worried that you can't afford a LifeGem for every member of your family, don't fret. There is now a LifeGem Family Plan available.

I just don't get the concept of LifeGems. Perhaps I'm just a little too narrow-minded, but it seems a bit obsessive. I mean, I understand the idea of immortality through preserving physical remains, a concept perfected by the Egyptians.

But when I kick the bucket, I just hope they can find a big dirt hole, in which my Earthly remains can take a nice, long nap. And if I turn into a deposit of diamonds after 10,000 years through natural means, so be it. That's the only way you're gonna get a gemstone out of me.

What do you think? Can you help me translate?

The Dialectizer

Ever wonder what your website would look like translated into a Jive dialect?

Well, wonder no more!

Now you, can translate your page into Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, and Pig Latin dialects at the click of a button!

My good friend Tom over at Tom's Hideaway pointed me in the direction of the Dialectizer, by Rinkworks.Com.

Wanna hear that in Jive?

Mah' baaaad homey Tom upside at Tom's Hideaway pointed me in de direcshun uh de Dialectizer, by Rinkwo'ks.Com. WORD!

How about Swedish Chef?

My guud freeend Tum oofer et Tum's Heedeevey pueented me-a in zee durecshun ooff zee Deeelectizer, by Reenkvurks. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

You see! No more awkward silence when trying to communicate with cockney bartenders or redneck convenience store clerks.

And if you want to incorporate the Dialectizer into your own website, check out the widget I've created in my sidebar to the right.

Want one?

Feel free to grab the code, but please include the Rosetta Rants banner at the bottom so people will know the location of me, your loyal and hardworking Translator.

How to do it:

In your browser, view this page's page source.

Use the Find function in your browser to locate the line of code that contains:

"Dialectize this page" (It will be the second occurrence)

Select that line of code all the way through the line of code that contains:

"Dialects by Rinkworks.Com"

Copy all that code and paste it into an editor.

Replace each "rosettarants.blogspot.com" with your own URL (without http://).

Paste the final version into your own webpage! You may have to play with the borders and such to get it to look right. If that doesn't work, email me and I'll send you a text version of the code. Don't worry - I don't mind. A Translator's work is never done!


Enjoy!
Blimey!
Enjoyyay!
Fry mah hide!
Right on!
Waskowy wabbit!

Rosetta Rants Reviewed At My Tropical Escape

My Tropical Escape is a wonderful blog dedicated to those of us interested in chucking it all and moving to an equatorial paradise. And I'm proud to say that Terence Chang has recommended Rosetta Rants to be reviewed as a travel blog! I guess my rants about worldly wackiness qualifies my humble blog as one dealing with travel.

My Tropical Escape "...is dedicated to providing information about overseas living, pursuing entrepreneurial aspirations, and the ongoing adventures of Mark Hayward and Terrie Hayward who OWN the Palmetto Guesthouse in Culebra, Puerto Rico."

Interesting photos, tips, and inspiration for anyone curious about finding their own private beach on which to live. So if you plan to move to (or visit) a tropical escape, make sure you stop by their site. I'll be visiting regularly, and I hope you will, too!

WierdConverter

As a translator of sorts, I am quite interested in conversions. Now, I’m not talking about religious conversions, although those are quite interesting, too. I mean things like converting one language to another, conversion of cultural norms, and – metric conversions.

Haven’t you always wondered how many newborn babies it would take to weigh as much as an African elephant?

1616.723253333

How about how many T-Rex’s would you need to stand on top of each other to reach the top of the Empire State building?

36.933336847

These and many other amazing-yet-weird conversions are available at the WeirdConverter site.

Interested in how many average bowel movements it would take to make up a Tom Cruise? One, you say? Wrong.

Check out the converter for the answer. First person with the correct answer wins a prize equaling 0.004761904761905 of a gas tanker semi truck. Figure that one out.

I totally get this site. No further translation necessary. Except for the conversion-type translations that will take place on the site. That’s the whole point.

Lost in Translation

Pieter Bruegel, The Tower of Babel, 1563.

Let us now investigate the language of …well, language. Why are there so many languages? Why are cultures largely defined by the language spoken within specific boundaries? Why can’t we all just get along – linguistically?

I’m not sure that I have answers for these questions. I’m not sure that anyone does. But the fact that there are so many languages and cultures on this beautiful planet is one of the driving forces behind this blog.

The book of Genesis describes the destruction of the Tower of Babel and the confusion of a unified human language. Man wanted to reach for the heavens, and God said something like: “Now, wait a minute. I don’t think so.” And he split us up into various cultures with different languages.

Now, what I think was so nifty about the Rosetta Stone, is that allowed us to undo some of that destruction. The combined Demotic, Hieroglyphics, and ancient Greek inscriptions allowed us to decipher one of the world’s lost civilizations – ancient Egypt. A piece of the Tower had been rebuilt.

And now, Carl Tashian is again piecing together the scattered fragments of Babel with his website Lost in Translation – and then pulling them right back down, burning them, scattering the ashes, and whizzing overzealously on the remains - all for the sake of a good time.

And a good time it is.

Tashian’s site allows you to enter any phrase or sentence – and translate that entry back and forth between five different languages, using a dynamic interface with Babelfish.

Here’s an example. I entered this sentence:

Rosetta Rants is the coolest and most interesting website that I have ever come across during my travels in cyberspace.

And I got this “babelized” translation:

Rants I gave to Rosetta the site of the Web of frischste is one and more interesting, of which everything agrees I found during my courses in Cyberspace.

This came from an English to French to English to German to English to Italian to English to Portuguese to English to Spanish to English translation. And if we tell the program to include Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, we get this:

The calmed site of the Web must, the one that interests the praise of the declared rosette of the certain material of that inside inside,the course for the low point, period of the station of the work more when cyber, is most interesting.

Notice how the length increased quite a bit? This is a perfect example of Chinglish, which will be explained at a further time. For now, all you need to know is that Lost in Translation provides hours of unstoppable Rosetta Fun!

Check it out for yourself!

I definitely get this website. No further translation necessary.

(Except for the translation done on that website, because that’s the point).

Update: Greg Laden's blog has some great examples of Babelized sentences.