[Wishlist] Ecosphere

I know it's old news, but I still want one. Now, if only the big one didn't cost nearly $500....

[Walken] Trivial Psychic

(transcript) (ytmnd)

Female Employee: Are you alright?

Ed Glosser: [ pause ] Your daughter is at home with the housekeeper..

Female Employee: Yes?

Ed Glosser: The housekeeper is making toast...

Female Employee: Yes?

Ed Glosser: It's not popping up...

Female Employee: And? Is there a fire?

Ed Glosser: It's burning! The toast is burning!

Female Employee: [ panicking ] Yeah?

Ed Glosser: The housekeeper's annoyed.. she has to scrape the burned parts off..

Female Employee: That's it?

Ed Glosser: It's not too late! You can call her.. and save the toast!

[Thought] IMDb Message Boards

I sometimes read the message boards on IMDb, usually when I'm looking at a particular show.

And, sometimes, I want to contribute and leave my own messages.

But every time I try, my fingers type "YOU ARE ALL IDIOTS!"

Does anyone else have this problem?

If you haven't viewed the forums, give it a try. See how many posts you can read before you weep for the future of humanity. My limit is: 1.

[Engrish] Bad Language

So, I was watching a fansub of R.O.D the TV (Read or Die), and there were ... problems.

Now, let me preface this with a confession: I can't really speak or understand Japanese, AND I'm hard of hearing. But even *I* could tell when they were getting it wrong. So that's REALLY bad.


3: Nice to meet you, Ginia. 6: Oh, it's Gynia? No, it's Junior. This is the second most painful mistake in the bunch, but the humor lasts and lasts, as it was consistently wrong for the entire first half of the series.


22 a: He means "Get ahold of the President" so I can kind of see how "Capture" works. Sort of.


22 b: Ugh. The most painful of the bunch. He CLEARLY says Razorback. Several times. I don't know how you can get this one so wrong, unless neither English nor Japanese is your native language. In which case, congratulations on getting as close as you did.


22 c: She starts to say "Chotto matte..." (Wait a second...) and is cut off after "Cho..." which sort of sounds like "Jo..." So, I can sort of see this one. Kind of.


23: Apparently, someone has never seen the name Earhart in print before.


25 a: She says Junior-kun, but I guess the Japanese word for recollection (juukai, iirc; it's not in my dictionary) is kind of close. Sort of.


25 b: Capitalization is for losers. 25 d: So are spaces.


Now, actual Engrish from the show:

This is actually the one that started me down this path. What the heck does "DUME IT!!" mean?? Seriously!


If you look closely, here you can see where the original (ALDOATE) was replaced by the correct ALDGATE.


Should this say Metropolitan? I'm just guessing...

[Me] Hometown Nicknames.

OK, I'm from Spokane, right? So the first place I looked up in PlaceOpedia was Spokane. Which wasn't there. T_T

So, I added it (and PlaceOpedia didn't save the proper zoom level, so clearly bugs are still being worked out).

Anyway, in adding it, I looked up my hometown in Wikipedia, something I hadn't done before. Included among other interesting bits of trivia are nicknames...

• Spovegas or Spokavegas
• Spokompton or Spocompton
• Spokanistan
• The 'Kan
• Spokangeles
• Spoklahoma
• Methlehem (in reference to the city's problem with the manufacturing, sale, and use of methamphetamines)

I hadn't heard of most of these before.

Spovegas/Spokavegas...I just don't see it.
Spokompten I've used.
Spokanistan...I love it.
The 'Kan...meh.
Spokangeles...I'm going to start using this one. ^_^
Spoklahoma...probably better with a long 'o' Spooooklahoma! (start singing)
Methlehem...Doesn't fit the "SpoSomething" mold, so could probably be easily applied to any region. The only reference I can find is an article from three years ago titled "O' Little Town in Methlehem", but that was general to eastern Washington, not Spokane specific. Interestingly, there is an actually a New Methlehem Mennonite School, and a song by Snake River Conspiracy named Methlehem. So, too general.

Are you from SpoCAN or SpoCAN'T?

[Random] By Your Powers Combined...

Google Maps and Wikipedia had a lovechild together (two great tastes that go great together).

PlaceOpedia was the result.

And I looked upon PlaceOpedia. And it was Good.

[Random] 555-2368

We're ready to believe you!

(who ya gonna call?)

[Random] Friendship

Sally: Harry.
Harry: What?
Sally: We are just going to be friends, ok?
Harry: Great! Friends! It's the best thing.
(On the road once more)
Harry: You realize of course that we can never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I'm saying is... and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form, is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That's not true, I have a number of men friends and there's is no sex involved.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You're saying I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I'm saying is they all want to have sex with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman he finds attractive, he always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive.
Harry: No, you pretty much wanna nail them too.
Sally: What if they don't want to have sex with you?
Harry: Doesn't matter, because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally: Well I guess we're not going to be friends then.
Harry: Guess not.
Sally: That's too bad. You are the only person I knew in New York.

[Engrish] Noncomburnable

Last of the crap-cam pics, this one from the 'local' (within an hour's drive) Starbucks.


The irony here is that everything else at Starbucks is pretty good English. It's the same at every Starbucks in Japan. (Google)

[Work] English Camp

Over Summer "break", I worked at an English camp (not really a camp, more of an English seminar, but I call everything camp, because I'm a jerk). When I was grabbing the pasta pictures, I found these (among others).


My cool students. The one in the center (Kazuki) wouldn't wear his name tag, so I grabbed it and started wearing it. Then he took mine and wore it, so at least he had something. ^_^ Although we got a lot of strange looks.



Ah, the truth comes out. My last name is actually Fabriel, and I've been lying to all of you all these years. I'm so ashamed.

[Godstuff] Holy Pasta Week ends

So, International Talk Like a Pirate Day has come and gone, and with it, Holy Pasta Week. Too late, I found this site. Described on Dave Barry's blog thusly:

If you need to brush up on your pirate talk, you can go here and run your mouse over the pirate critter's pants to generate a random pirate phrase, thanks to the wonder of the Pants Based Random Pirate Phrase Generator (PBRPPG), which was invented in 1704 by Bluebeard. Or possibly Blackbeard. It was definitely some guy with a beard.

As Lewis pointed out, our local combini was having a pasta sale of some sort. Was it just a coincidence...?

[The signs say Pasta (or pa-su-ta)]
(sorry about the poor quality, all I had with me was my crap-cam).

[News] Misc

1. I hope everyone is enjoying Holy Pasta Week, which starts today (well, yesterday if you're Italian Orthodox like me).
2. The two new female teachers at my base school are both pregnant. They just started here this past term.
3. My town finally has a page in English!
4. Yesterday for lunch we had pita bread. Only, they say 'pan' for bread in Japanese. So, we ate pita pan.
5. On Sunday I bought mini-cream-pan (cream-pan is bread with like a custard in the center) for the teacher's room. Yesterday (Wednesday) there was still one left. So, I nuked it to take the edge of the staleness off. But, the controls are in Japanese, and I couldn't find the "nuke for 15 seconds" button. Well, I got it figured out enough to get it started, and just counted for 15 seconds and shut it off. That should warm it up, right?
   
   I'm not saying that the cream center was hot, but I used my fresh cup of coffee to cool my tongue.
6. My local CIR is doing a story on the ALTs for my (expanded) town. She wanted a picture, and I half-jokingly suggested the me-covered-in-mud picture. I think it's a pretty good reflection of the kind of guy I am (i.e. clumsy). She's considering it.
   

UPDATE:
Added two new (well, old, but new to you) pictures to the me-covered-in-mud page.

[Random] No Idea

This is just one of those unexplainable things...

[Thought] Stupid People

Stupid people deserve what they get. It would be wrong to feel sympathy or pity. We are right to mock them.

[QUESTION] Smartest Person in the Room

(from Broadcast News [script])

Paul: It must be nice to always believe you know better. To think you're always the smartest person in the room.
Jane: (from her depths) No, it's awful. Oh my, it's awful.

Would you want to always be the smartest person in the room?

[Godstuff] In the Name of the Lloyd!

From The Straight Dope:

Q: How come people always say "Jesus H. Christ"? Why not Jesus Q. Christ or Jesus R. Christ or something else? Does the H really stand for something?

A: The H stands for Harold, as in, "Our Father, who art in heaven, Harold be thy name".

[Sad] Katrina

(the storm, not my sister of the same name)

Read an anecdote on Civil Defense in Cuba.

Read the Interdictor blog (link goes to the beginning).

Read Michael Moore's "Vacation is Over" letter to Bush.

For counterpoint, read Ben Stein's "Get Off His Back" defense of Bush.

[Godstuff] Holy Pasta Week is coming!

(From Boing Boing)

Regarding Pastafarian holidays, BB reader Keith Kisser says:

The holiest of holidays for Pastafarians, is of course the birthday of His Most Holy Prophet, Marco Polo (b. sept 15, 1254), who brought the word of His Noodly Appendage back from the East.

As Talk Like A Pirate Day falls on September 19th, this five day period constitutes Holy Pasta Week, durring which spaghetti is consumed liberally. With a nice chianti, of course.

This year, the Sabbath falls outside of Holy Pasta Week, touching it on the 14th. Plan accordingly.

This is a big deal. HPW is even holier than Ramendan and Pastaover.

[Random]Superbad

Seriously, wtf?

(not to be confused with Strongbad)

[Random]Dog Judo

http://www.dogjudo.co.uk/
I thought Powerdate was kinda funny. The rest...meh.

[Me] Karaoke

(From a recent e-mail)

> Hello, Lewis here.
>
> Does anyone fancy a spot of Brazilian food followed
> by karaoke this Friday?

Sounds like fun. But, does everyone have to sing? Is it like 'Fight Club'? "If this is your first night at Karaoke Club, you have to sing."

Not that I'm a bad singer. The word 'bad' implies a level of tolerability, whereas my singing ability is so far down on the scale there are no words in the English language to describe it. No one ever hears me sing and then says "It's bad, but I've heard worse." No, they usually say something like "WHY HAS GOD ABANDONED US?! END THE PAIN!" and then stick pencils in their ears.

It's really like a reverse-superpower. "Watch out, evil-doers! Here comes KARAOKE-MAN!" Oh, if only there were anti-comic-books with anti-heroes and their anti-powers, I'd fit right in.

Sometimes it comes in handy though. When I was in university, I had a part time job working with negotiators in hostage situations. They'd call me in and I'd sing, and the terrorists would surrender. Unfortunately for me though, they were only paying me by the hour. 5 minutes of singing doesn't add up to a lot of money. What's worse is that, as my reputation spread, it was often enough just to THREATEN to let me sing and the terrorists would beg for mercy.

Negotiator: "If you don't come out, we'll have Phoenix sing for you."
Terrorist: "No, please! We give up!"

After that, I didn't get paid at all.

The FBI made an mp3 of my singing, and they use it on encrypted computers. They just upload the file, and the computer screams "Alright! Alright! I'll talk! Just take it off repeat-play!" And do you think I get any royalties from that? Nah. Where's the RIAA when I need them? Sure, they'll sue 12-year-old girls for filesharing, but when it comes to the FBI, they're all "But they have guns! And lawyers!" Cowards.

Anyway, my point is, I don't want to sing.
---
Phoenix