The world is small with fish-babble

I really like these translating widgets.  They are fun to play with.  If you stick in a phrase, translate to another language, translate it back, go to a different language and back a few times, the message fragments into absurdity.  Here's a sample:

“Babblefish makes the world smaller”  turns to
“The world is small with fish babble”

“Like shooting fish in a barrel” turns to
“Like fish germinating in a barrel”  (english to german to french to english)

“houseguests and fish stink after three days” turns to
“houseguests and Fischgestank after three days” (English to German to English)

“the lights are on, but nobody’s home” turns to
“the lights are over, but no domestic servant” (english to Italian to english)
“the lights are not switched on, but head anybody”  (english to german to english)
“the lights are lit, but nobody at the house” (english to french to english)
“As for light/write, but house nobody'  S it is” (english to japanese to english)
“The light opens, only nobody'  s family”  (english to chinese to english)
“Nobody'  S?”  (english to korean to english)

“eating me out of house and home” turns to
“to eat me outside of the house and from the house to”  (english to french to german to english)
“Eat me from the house and the house”  (english to japanese to english)

“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs.” turns to
“The orphan of fast brown jumped over the lazy dog.” (english to japanese to english)
“This only quick brown fox jumps the lazy dog.” (english to chinese to english)
“The quick brown fox fall to the lazy dog”  (english to korean to english)

“Watch out, the cactus is on fire!” turns to
“Ingratitude at the outside there is a non, cactus,!”  (english to korean to english)
“As for the watch in the fire, there is a cactus!”  (english to japanese to english)
“It watches outside, the cactus is on fire!”  (english to italian to english)

“There is an alligator floating in my bathtub.” turns to
“When it refloats inside my bathtub, there is an alligator.”  (english to korean to english)
“Has the alligator floats in mine bathtub”  (english to chinese to english)

Help with visualizing your characters

Sometimes when you are trying to write a story, it is hard to visualize your characters unless you have modeled them after someone you know or have met in real life. I’ve been trying to write my first fantasy/romance story, and I ran up against this challenge.

The solution is Hero Machine 2.5, a web-based application that allows you to make up your own hero character. (I'm putting a link to it in my sidebar as well.) You can choose from a startling array of skin colors, eye shapes, noses, mouths, eyebrows, hairstyles, clothing articles, and gear to put in their hands. You can give them wings or tails, if you so desire.

You can build your characters to match the image you have in your head, or you can simply use it to make your characters in the first place with no preconceived ideas. Either way, it is a lot of fun. Once you take a screenshot and save it to your character file, you’ll end up with an image you can reference so you don't make silly mistakes in character descriptions. (“What color was the king’s hair again? How long was his beard?”)

Just for grins, I am going to put up some heroes and heroines that I created, just so you see what is possible.