Some folks might think that today is "Earth Day", but folks who work at Logos know that today is Curry Day. That's right, today (April 22, 2005) is the fifth-annual Logos Curry Cook-off!

This means that all sorts of folks bring curry to the office, other folks bring rice cookers, and everybody brings an appetite. By the end of lunchtime, a new Curry Champion has been crowned!

Curry Day is one of my favorite days of the year. This year (as of this writing, anyway) we have FIFTEEN curries to sample! And we may have more by the time lunchtime rolls around.

I'll post pictures later tonight (it's easier to transfer photos from my archaic camera using my laptop at home) but if you can't wait, here are some photos from last year's Curry Cookoff.

For those keeping score: Eli Evans and Bob Pritchett tied and have been co-champions for the past year, so this year is a bit of a grudge match for them. I was in the spot I affectionately refer to as first place loser — you know, the best of the losers but still a loser (aka "second place").

Update: Curry Day was awesome! The results were:

First Place: Dale Pritchett
Second Place: Eli Evans
Third Place: Vincent Setterholm

Bob Pritchett (who made some stellar curry as well) video blogs the Logos Curry Cookoff. Pretty cool, check it out.

Lastly, my curry didn't fare so well (watch Bob's video, you'll see my thoughts on the matter). But I leave you with some curry poetry:

Thy savoriness, O curry, delighteth my palate
Thy spice o'erwhelms my tongue
Thy sweetness, O curry, eraseth my hunger
O'er rice thou art the one.

Update II: Uploaded the curry photos. You can find them on my photo pages.

Update III: Eli Evans finally posts a link to his recipe (the winner in my book — sorry, Dale).

Update IV: Here's my curry placard. (Like the number in Cooper Black?) I won't post my recipe, but I will tell you I based it on this one. If I were to do it again, I'd do basically the same thing only add some chopped apples (I'd planned on doing that, but forgot to buy apples) or applesauce along with some chutney for some extra flavor.

In comments to my post on Beza's Greek New Testament, Stephen C. Carlson (Hypotyposeis) writes regarding the bibles.org.uk site:

That web site is very interesting, but there's some important 19th cen. editions of the GNT are not there (e.g. Westcott-Hort, Lachmann, Griesbach, etc.). Do you happen to know of any sites that has scans of any of those editions?

I don't know of other sites offhand apart from the TC Ebind Index. (I'm guessing the bibles.org.uk dude lifted stuff like Tischendorf, von Soden, Sinaiticus, etc. from that site.) 

I've got a print copy of Westcott-Hort, so that's not a problem for me. But the others would be nice to see. If anyone has info on any PDF facsimile editions (that is, scans of the actual documents, not transcriptions and re-typeset editions) I'd love to know about them. I'd also like to see early Nestle editions (I have a 1912 Nestle, which is the ninth edition if my Latin guessing skills are any good), Tregelles, or just about anything else out there you might know about.

The same goes for critical editions of any of the early versions (Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Latin, etc.). I'd love to see 'em if you know where they can be found.

It's true. You can catch me in one o' them new-fangled movin' pictures over on Bob Pritchett's blog. Bob's Video Tour of Logos covers Logos Bible Software's Design & Editorial department. That's the department I'm in. It's where all of the cool people hang out, playing around with new data sets and figuring out how to implement them in the Libronix Digital Library System.

Update: My D&E colleague Eli chimes in on Bob's video.

I'd planned to blog about a Stephanus version prior to Beza's edition, but then I realized that my edition of Stephanus' 1550 is actually Scrivener's edition of Stephanus, and since I'm primarily interested in format and typography of the originals, this wouldn't do (yet ... wait 'till I work my way into the 1800's!).

So, I'm hopping to Beza. I'll come back to the 1550 (and 1546) Stephanus versions after I download 'em from Bibles.org.uk.

On to Beza. First, check out the device on the title page. An anchor, water, a snake, and some arms. Complete with date in roman numerals. Typical for the period. Again, all of these images are clickable.

The facsimile I downloaded is pretty gritty, so the detail isn't the best. It's a shame, I'd really love to see how the start of each book looks in its full glory. Here you can see the beginning of the epistle to Titus. Once again, Beza's edition isn't simply a reproduction of the Greek text, it is his Greek text, his Latin translation, and the "Vetus" Latin, which I'd guess would be Jerome's Vulgate (but that's purely unconfirmed speculation). There are also marginal notes and scads of translation notes (in Latin, of course) that you can't see on this shot.

Of interest, we see the text is actually versified. I'm guessing that Beza is following Stephanus' innovation here — I think I recall that Stephanus was one of the first to present the text versified in a manner like we're familiar with today, though I could be wrong. So the verses line up. The first block is what we'd call Titus 1.1, and you can see the verse number in the gutter between columns. Same for verse 2, and so on.

On a purely cosmetic note, the marginal note throws the page out of balance. It looks lopsided due to the massiveness of the title device. It's tough for me to look at. It's not nearly as bad on other pages. Also interesting is the use of a smaller italic font for the "Vetus" Latin. He's obviously de-emphasized the older Latin in favor of his own translation.

So, what about Beza's version of 1Ti 2.3-6? Here it is. Beza has so many notes, these four verses span two pages of his edition:

In the above (though you probably can't read it) Beza cites the reading of the Complutensian Polyglot. Anyway, here's the actual content of the verses; you might even be able to read it:

Once again, we see some serious typography going on. Can you imagine hand-setting the type for these plates? That, and this is the third edition of a 1500's-era Greek New Testament we've seen, and they all have a "modern" translation (that is, the Latin) along with them. Yet today, most of those who study Greek seriously would rather not see any modern language translation at all in the version. It makes me wonder how come these early editions viewed such an addition as almost natural?

Of course, Stephanus' 1550 edition doesn't (as I recall, at least it doesn't on the front page of Mark that we have here at the Logos offices) have a Latin translation. So maybe Erasmus, Beza and the Complutensian are the outliers.

Next time: Stephanus' 1550 (and 1546) editions, assuming I download them successfully.

My good friend Bob Pritchett* is back to blogging on a more regular basis. Bob doesn't necessarily blog about Logos Bible Software, but he does occassionally.

Of interest today: He's posted portions of a video tour of Logos. Check it out if you are curious about where the company is located, or what the building looks like on the inside. I think Bob plans to post other portions of the video tour in the future. Who knows ... you might even see some moving pictures of me there sometime!**

* President and CEO of Logos Bible Software; he's also my boss and a ricoblog reader so I have to say nice things about him. But that's easy to do as Bob is a great guy and a good friend. And his teriyaki grilled salmon is most excellent.

** I promise, no more pictures of my toe, and especially no moving pictures of the toe!

Some typophiles may know of Ari Davidow's Hebrew Typography Blog. Anyway, he had a flurry of posts over the weekend after about six weeks of silence. I'd recommend posts on:

• Anti-reader Hebrew-English typography
• Updated Passover Haggadah Toolkit (as an example of Hebrew / English / transliterated typography)

Thanks, folks, to those of you who have asked about the foot.

All is well. No pain (at least, not yet). And I'm not limping or anything.

That said, apologies to all who were unsettled by my podiatrical perambulations; Less picturesque postings will return post-haste.

On Saturday (April 16) I was in bathroom-cleaning mode. [Here's my Bathroom-Cleaning Rhapsody Playlist, if you're interested]. As I was starting the dreaded task, I accidentally slammed my left foot, toes-first, into a doorway. It hurt. I jumped up and down on my right foot, holding my left foot. But it wasn't unbearable, so I cleaned the bathroom. We're talkin' full-scale cleaning, top-to-bottom, including a long-overdue tub/shower scouring. The toe right next to my left pinkie-toe hurt a little, but not incessantly. So, I forgot about it.

Then, since my folks are back from Arizona, I went to Oak Harbor for the afternoon/evening. When I got back home to Bellingham at around 9:30 PM or so I took off my shoes and socks. This is what greeted me:

Actually, it was worse than that. The purple color was deeper. It looked like my toe had died and was getting ready to fall off. "Crud", I thought. "Guess I broke it." So I grabbed the frozen corn from the freezer and started to ice it a bit. After about 20 minutes, I figured I'd better go to the hospital to make sure everything was OK. So I grabbed a book (Van Neste's Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles, which turned a few eyes at the hospital), hopped in the car and drove to the ER.

I should stop right now and say that I hate the hospital. I mean, I hate it. "Hate" is a strong word, but I think it is accurate in this case. I've said before that for me to go to the doctor, I either have to be unable to stop the bleeding or unable to bear the pain. Neither of those was true in this case, but I went. The sheer freakishness of the color of my toe convinced me it would be a good thing to go.

So, I went to the ER at St. Joseph's in Bellingham. Talked to the guy behind the front desk a bit, who turns out to be a Music major from WWU with minors in Ancient Greek and Computer Science ... strange the folks you run into. I told him he should apply for a job at Logos. He told me to take a seat, the nurse would check me out. The first nurse took my temperature, blood pressure and pulse. I warned her, "My blood pressure is going to be really high". I could feel my heart racing just from being in the hospital. After she took it, she said, "That's not too bad, after all you're in the ER." Phew. First hurdle down.

Next there was a really helpful lady who took down my information and got it into their computer. One thing I didn't know: There are apparently three other folks in Bellingham who share my name. That's helpful news, I guess. Then I waited some more.

They called my name after probably 90 minutes. I followed some dude down a maze of corridors into another room where I waited. Another nurse then checked out my ugly toe. "Probably broken, the doctor will probably just tell you to keep it taped to the toe next to it." Yep, just what I figured. Another 10 minutes (by this time, I'm into Van Neste discussing the cohesiveness of 1Ti 2.8-15) and the doc looks at it. "Looks like it's broken." He seemed concerned that I was in pain, but I ensured him that wasn't the case. Then some other dude came in and wheeled me in the hospital bed to radiology, where they did an x-ray of my left foot. I told him I would walk no problem, but he insisted on wheeling me. It was a fun ride, we chatted the whole way. Then the radiology dude took my picture:

You'll need to click on it to see a larger picture. Then you'll see this small arrow pointing to where my toe fracture is. You can see a little bone piece sticking out on the right side of the bone, just above the joint, in the toe closest to the "L".

Pretty cool, huh?

On the way out I showed my pictures to the people who helped me in the ER. They were nice folks, generally. All in all not a bad experience. It doesn't change my philosophy about hospitals, though. I still want to avoid them.

I'll probably fill the pain perscription just in case, but I don't know that I'll actually have to use it. If the "pain" persists for a week I'm supposed to go back, but here's hoping that the Dutch blood coursing through my veins imparts its mystical healing powers to my next-to-the-pinkie-toe fracture.