PS - Heroes

I finally got caught up on Heroes - all 18 episodes so far. It's on hiatus until late April now, so I get my life back. I am still amazed at how good every show is... still infused with wonder. Sylar is a great villain, as is the man with the horn rimmed glasses... though as time goes on, he's getting sympathetic.

One of my favorite details is that the bad guys in "The Company" all speak Japanese to eachother to keep from being overheard... and they think in Japanese too, to protect themselves from mind-readers.

Which only made me want to get better at Japanese. Of course, if the bad guys were all german, I'd want to bone up on my German, wouldn't I?

I have been doing short Japanese lessons from Japanesepod101.com, and they're just amazing. They have a work ethic that stuns me: They generate at least one lesson a day, and have since late 2005. Each lesson is in audio with 4 participants, with an accompanying transcript in Romanji, Kana, AND Kanji. And it's all FREE - there are like 600 lessons out there, from beginning to advanced, audio blogs, cultural notes, etc. If a person really owned just one of their 15 minute lessons every single day, they'd be fluent in a year, I really think so. And it's very contemporary culture based, so you're learning polite and familiar terms. It's much deeper than my Pimsleur (which I stalled again... curse you "real life") and it emphasizes reading as well.

SO I'M GOING TO DO IT. Starting at Beginner 1, and going from there.

Oh, and Brainready: I also stalled on Book 3 while Heroes infected my brain. But by the end of next week, both books 2 and 3 will be ready and being proofed. REALLY. I came up with some fun new exercises for book 3, which will really add value to the full set. I can't wait for you all to see them!

Now I really AM going to the mall. Happy weekend!