Saturday, October 18, 2014

The Great Circle of Elf

So Bizzy has been snooping around in the innards of our blogsite and found a widget that makes it easy for people to sign up to get e-mail notifications whenever we Izzies write a cool new post! (It's over on the right, just under the page view counter.)

Naturally, once Bizzy installed it, we couldn't resist playing around with it a little.  We put our own address in.  Then we wrote a new post.  Then we watched our e-mail like hawks to get the notification that we'd written a new post. Then we go back to our blog and write another post and then watch for it to come through to our e-mail.

We have decided to call this "The Great Circle of Elf."

You must understand that there is not much to do for entertainment up here at the Pole. Mostly we just 1) work in the Workshop, 2) work out in the ElfGym, 3) munch in the Munchroom, or 4) play with Quizzy's games and puzzles in the ElfDen.  (Of course, there is also the Great Outdoors, where we have snowball fights that go on for days.  And days around here can be REALLY LONG during some parts of the year.)
 
In any case, we have been having fun going round and round the G.C. of E.

Please join us, by putting your e-mail into that tiny slot on the right and following directions to set it all up.

Bizzy also put a "subscribe" button on here, but we haven't figured out yet how it works. We'll get back to you when we do.

In the meantime, here is a fun picture for you of some of the elves working out in the ElfGym.

Cheers,

The Izzy Elves

Can you spot the non-Izzies who have sneaked in to play in our gym?



Friday, October 17, 2014

More Translation Chuckles!

So we Izzy Elves cannot resist playing with the "translate" button (see it on the right??).

We just tried translating our names into Portuguese (because Deedy speaks it a bit - she was in the Peace Corps in Brazil 45 years ago!)

Guess what?  Just like in French, Frizzy's name is the only one that is changed into something else. Here's the list:

Bizzy 
Blizzy
Dizzy
Fizzy
Cabelo Crespo
Quizzy
Tizzy
Whizzy 
(e Deedy)

It's always fun to see how similar words can be in these Romance languages:

French Cheveux Crépus = Portuguese Cabelo Crespo.

We prefer the Portuguese, because we don't have to hunt all over the keyboard trying to figure out how to put in the  ´.  (Which we just did anyway, which kind of defeats the purpose. Oh, well.)

Luckily, Dizzy seems to have learned his lesson about teasing Frizzy about this. Just in case, Bizzy looked online and found out that Dizzy in Portuguese is "Vertiginoso". We're all ready to start calling him that if he starts calling Frizzy "Cabelo Crespo". 

Deedy (that's Dorothea Jensen to you) has been pestering us lately asking our opinions on which of Bizzy's "adventures" (or misadventures) she should put in the next Izzy Elves story. (It's going to be about Bizzy, obviously.) She says she won't start writing it down until after Christmas—which is just as well because we are all slammed with work here at the Pole until then, of course, and don't have time to chat with her.

Meanwhile, Bizzy is looking a little nervous. We tell him not to worry, Deedy won't put anything in his story that will embarrass him—too much!

Much Love,

The Izzy Elves (and Deedy)

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (♥)

(Whizzy likes this picture because his name is first! Since his name starts with "W" he's usually at the end of the list!)

Thursday, October 16, 2014

DD Dolls!

This is a picture of an historic first meeting of DD Inc.  On the left is our Deedy (Dorothea Jensen to you). On the right is Dee Dee Esposito,  She is a talented, creative person who is going to make Frizzy dolls!  We are all extremely excited about this, especially (let's be frank) as this means that the rest of us will soon have dolls made that look like us, too!

Hooray for the DDs!!!!!

Love from the Izzy Elves,

Bizzy, Blizzy, Dizzy, Fizzy, Frizzy, Quizzy, Tizzy, Whizzy (and Deedy)


Monday, October 13, 2014

OKAY, OKAY, BIZZY. YOU WIN!!

Bizzy finally convinced the rest of us Izzies that we need to put a counter thingy right on our blog. (See it on the right??)

We all talked it over, and decided that reading about how many people visited our IzzyElfBlog was REALLY BORING for non-Izzy Elves.

So now it is all automatic.

(Wow, did you see that????  Over 8000 now!!!) Sorry, we won't talk about it any more. We promise.

Bizzy has been looking all over the blog  innards looking for other interesting gadgets to put on it.  He LOVES this stuff.

So keep visiting. Who knows what will be showing up next!

Love,

Bizzy, Blizzy, Dizzy, Fizzy, Frizzy, Quizzy, Tizzy, Whizzy (and Honorary Izzy Elf, Deedy)

P.S. We insisted that Deedy post her picture instead of ours for a change.

Here she is wearing headphones in order to record our stories. Hi, Deedy!




ROUGH (AND AWFUL, WE'RE PRETTY SURE) TRANSLATION

So in our last posting, we were talking about how impossible it would be to translate our story poems into another language.

Today, we will demonstrate what we are talking about by doing a rough translation of part of Frizzy, the S.A.D. Elf  into French.

First, here's the picture for this part of the story,  Frizzy and Dizzy are in the ElfGym trying to figure out a new job for her. (The problem is that Frizzy feels terribly sad every Christmas after Santa has taken away the dolls for delivery that she has worked on and really loves.)



So here's the English version:

Then just when she needed him Dizzy came in,
As usual, wearing an ear-reaching grin.
“Hi Frizz,” Dizzy said, his smile turning to frown.
“I can see by your face that you’re feeling quite down.
Now, I’ve done some research, and have found out, you see,
Your annual trouble is called S.A.D.”
“What’s that?” Frizzy asked, “Does that mean I am sad?”
“No, it’s a description of why you feel bad.
The S is for Seasonal—each Christmas Day
You miss all your dollies when they go away.
The A’s for Affection—the clear reason why
You yearn for your dollies, and that makes you sigh.
The D’s for Distress—‘cause you’re feeling so blue.
Your dollies’ departure is awful for you.”
“But what I can work on instead, do you think?
To cure S.A.D. and feel more in the pink?”
Dizzy said, “Maybe building blocks, they’re awfully bland
And boring, ‘til held in a clever child’s hand.
It’s not until then that their magic turns on.
I doubt you’d miss building blocks after they’re gone.”


Now we've got to go take a look at how this looks in French.  We'll be right back.

 ***

OK, we're back.  Here's the French:


Puis juste au moment où elle avait besoin de lui Dizzy est entré, 
Comme d'habitude, le port d'un sourire d'oreille portée  
"Salut Frizz," Dizzy dit, son sourire tournant de froncer les sourcils.
 «Je peux voir votre visage que vous vous sentez très bas.  
Maintenant, j'ai fait quelques recherches et j'ai découvert, voyez-vous,  
Votre trouble annuel est appelé SAD " 
 "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" crépus demandé, 
"Est-ce que cela signifie que je suis triste?"
 "Non, c'est une description pourquoi vous vous sentez mal.
 L'S est pour saisonnier-chaque jour de Noël  
Vous oubliez tous vos chariots quand ils s'en vont. 
 d'affection-la raison précise pour laquelle de 
l'A Vous aspirez à vos chariots, et qui vous fait soupirer. 
 L'D's de la détresse -'cause vous vous sentez si bleu.
 départ de vos chariots est terrible pour vous. "  
"Mais ce que je peux travailler sur place, pensez-vous?  
Pour guérir SAD et se sentent plus dans le rose? " dit Dizzy, 
"Peut-être que la construction blocs, ils sont terriblement fade et ennuyeux, 
'til tenu dans la main d'un enfant intelligent. 
 C'est seulement alors que leur magie s'allume.
 je doute que vous oubliez de blocs de construction après ils sont partis. 

 
We suspect that roughly rendering this into French negates what Red City Review said about the English version: "Jensen’s narrative rhymes the whole way through...while creating playful sentences that move it along. The rhymes do not seem forced and fit into the story perfectly."

We rest our case.

Love from:

Bizzy, Blizzy,  Vertigineux Dizzy, Fizzy,  Cheveux Crépus Frizzy, Quizzy, Tizzy, Whizzy (and Honorary Izzy Elf, Deedy)

HEY! CHEVEUX CRÉPUS!

So we Izzy Elves have been amusing ourselves (when we are NOT working diligently in the Izzy Elf Workshop) by reading our blog pages translated into other languages.  It is really a HOOT!

Our favorite so far:  in the French version, the listing of our names looks like this:

Bizzy
Blizzy
Dizzy
Fizzy
Cheveux Crépus
Quizzy
Tizzy
Whizzy

Which of these things is NOT like the others?

So we've all been teasing Frizzy a little bit about this, calling her Cheveux Crépus at every opportunity.  We suspect (although we do not have an English French dictionary at hand) that this means Frizzy Hair, but it just doesn't sound QUITE the same as plain Frizzy.

At first, Frizzy laughed when we did this, but lately she isn't laughing so much. Therefore, most of us Izzies have stopped doing this, except Dizzy.  Of course, he REALLY likes Frizzy and so teases her more than anyone else does.  (Boy elves are not that different from regular boys, after all.)

We think that Bizzy has solved the problem, however.  He found an English-French Dictionary online and looked up Dizzy.  In French it is Vertigineux. We think.  So now we're all calling Dizzy Vertigineux and (surprise, surprise) he has STOPPED calling little Frizzy Cheveux Crépus.

The one thing we've all learned from this is that translating our poetic stories into other languages is simply NOT going to work.  We'll talk about this more in our next blog.

Love,
Bizzy, Blizzy,  Vertigineux Dizzy, Fizzy,  Cheveux Crépus Frizzy, Quizzy, Tizzy, Whizzy (and Honorary Izzy Elf, Deedy)


Sunday, October 12, 2014

Woo Hoo!!!!



When we Izzy elves got up this morning, the total number of people who had visited pages of our blog ever since we started it a year and a half ago was a little over 6000.

Here is the total tonight:

We Izzies are all scratching our heads over this. We keep asking each other "Who ARE these people and WHY are they looking at our IzzyElfBlog?"

But we don't have any idea what the answer is.  Not even Bizzy, who usually thinks he knows EVERYTHING. (But he doesn't.) He's been having a lot of fun counting the page views as they come in.  He loves counting. That's why his symbol is a number sign, as you can see from his picture:



In any case, we all want to say THANK YOU for the visit.

If we knew who you were, we'd all visit YOUR blog. (Or we'd try to figure out how to, anyway.)

Come back again soon, when we have more interesting things to talk about than numbers!

(Although we must confess we think these numbers are FASCINATING AND WONDERFUL!)

XXXXXXXX(X)

Bizzy, Blizzy, Dizzy, Fizzy, Frizzy, Quizzy, Tizzy, Whizzy (and H.I.E. Deedy)


THANK YOU!


Voila!

Bizzy was snooping around the blog numbers and noticed that, as he puts it, "25.4 % of the people looking at IzzyElfBlog at this very moment are doing so from France."

He insisted we put a "translate" widget on our blog, so now anyone who wants to read our blog in some other language can do so INSTANTLY.

We've been fooling around with this, taking a peek of what our blog looks like in French, Portuguese, and Chinese.

Such fun to see what happens to the words we put down here when they are sent around the world!

Guess we'd better get back to work.

Christmas is coming!!!!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ (♥)
Bizzy, Blizzy, Dizzy, Fizzy, Frizzy, Quizzy, Tizzy and Whizzy( and H.I.E Deedy)





SLASH IZZY ELF???? REALLY???

Hmmm.  This is the kind of thing that drives us Izzy Elves nutty.  We discovered that we can put a widget that takes our Faithful Blog Readers (thank you again) to YouTube to see our fun videos.  However, whenever we put the name of our channel there (Izzy Elves) other videos sneak in that are not ours.  "Slash Izzy Elf" for one. We don't know what this is and we are a little afraid to take a look at it.

Meanwhile, below are some links so you can go directly to our videos. We are NOT including a link to said "Slash Izzy Elf", although once you get to YouTube, you can choose to view that if you want.

Just don't tell us about it.

Thanks,

Bizzy, Blizzy, Dizzy, Fizzy, Frizzy, Quizzy, Tizzy, Whizzy and HIE Deedy

Santa's Izzy Elves: Trailer for Grownups

Santa's Izzy Elves: Trailer for Kids

Santa's Izzy Elves: Excerpt of Frizzy, the S.A.D. Elf Audiobook
(now available from Amazon.com, Audible.com, and iTunes.

Santa's Izzy Elves: Excerpt of Blizzy, the Worrywart Elf Audiobook
(New, Improved version will be available soon from the above websites.)

Santa's Izzy Elves: Excerpt of Tizzy, the Christmas Shelf Elf Audiobook
(New, Improved version will be available soon from the above websites.)

Santa's Izzy Elves: Excerpt of Dizzy, the Stowaway Elf Audiobook
(New, Improved version will be available soon from the above websites.)

Please note: CDs of all these audiobooks will be available soon on Amazon.com. Yes, we know this is hopelessly 20th Century technology, but we think some people would prefer these to the downloaded version.
 




SIX IS (ACTUALLY NOT) OUR NEW FAVORITE NUMBER!

Wecome to our blog!  For some reason, people have looked at this particular post over three thousand times.  We Izzy Elves are mystified by this!  This post was formerly (and we are changing it here) a simple salute to the fact that pageviews for the whole blog had reached 6000 and the number of posts we've put up on it was 60.  If you will check out the counting widget (on the right side of this page) you will see that our totals now are much higher.

But enough about exact numbers: we're still very excited that people are looking at our blog in droves. (Bizzy wants to know exactly how many people are in a drove.  But that's just Bizzy.  He's quite literal. But we love him anyway.)


We do enjoy posting about what is happening up here at the North Pole (in our section, anyway).

The latest news? CD audiobooks of Tizzy, Blizzy, Dizzy, and Frizzy's stories! They will be for sale via Amazon soon. (Just as soon as Deedy—that's what we call Dorothea Jensen, who writes down our adventures, and does it in verse—figures out how to get our CDs on the internet.)

Also, Deedy tells us that she has met someone called Dee Dee, who will be making something called a prototype doll of Frizzy.  As a result, Frizzy is feeling very full of herself, and keeps striking poses like some kind of (sorry, Frizzy) empty-headed model!

Finally, we have a giveaway going! Ten downloads of the downloadable Frizzy audiobook from Audible.com. To enter, just send an e-mail with "Frizzy Giveaway" in the subject line to us at elfenterprisesllc@gmail.com.

Thanks for visiting!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥