I watched the original...thought it a bit of a "B" series, but intriguing nonetheless. Without giving away any spoilers, does the US version of the show have different things happen or have a different outcome?
Just wondering about the show.
What, didn't the US networks want to subtitle the original?
Just wondering...is this show going to keep running for as long as possible, until the ratings drop and they may or may not have the chance to wrap up the story?
In the original's favour, at least the series were short and the show had a short run, on purpose. I.e. the whole show ran about 20 episodes or something. Is the first series of the US show going to be more than that? And have another series to follow? THAT would be really annoying.
I've heard that there is a spin-off of the original UK series, BUT, seeing as how the original ended, that just seems really stupid, in my view...not the kind of premise that I would embrace.
Cheers.
The original ended because John Simm who played Sam in the original decided to leave after series two (2007), stating that he felt he had taken the role as far as he could.
The BBC wanted to continue the series, thus spawned the spin off, Ashes to Ashes and it is set in 1981, and it is just as good as the original Life On Mars was, and far better than this bad carbon copy of the original.
Sorry to hear that, as I felt that the show had run its course in the original. I feel ambivalent about the ending...in one way it's satisfying, but in another way it's stupid. SPOILER ALERT: Really, not interested in Ashed To Ashes...why watch a show about someone's figment of their imagination? In other words, we KNOW these characters that Sam sees are NOT real...they are delusions. Pointless watching it, really.
sharebut that's what makes ashes interesting - the main character is confused when she goes back in time and meets somebody else's delusions.
sausages, bunfight...and golfballs
[deleted]
While it was said when the UK LOM ended that it was a coma, people in charge have come back and said they're doing something different with it, and Ashes to Ashes is going to be where the answers are found. The last ep of the first season starts to show they're going in a different direction.
shareWhat's the story with that show? How many series have been done? Hasn't shown here in Australia yet. Where is the UK up to with that spin-off? How long will the spin-off run?
Even if the show is not stupid, it would reflect badly on LOM because it would suggest that they stuffed up the ending of LOM. I'm just taking the ending of LOM at face values, which makes the very premise of A2A absurd. Would need to know it unstuffs up the ending of LOM before committing to it.
One series has aired, the second one is starting in either February or March - not sure on that one. I heard that A2A was planned out for three, but I'm not 100% sure on that one.
A2A deals with Alex Drake, who winds up shot and ends up in 1981 London. In the last ep of LOM, Sam makes the tape with his 1973 experiences that he sends off the the colleague studing officers that have suffered trauma, and Alex is the one who ends up with the tape. One of the big differences is that Alex sort of has a nemesis in Arthur Layton and a drive to save her parents, while finding out things weren't as lovey dovey and clean between them as she first thought. Because Alex had Sam's tape from the get go she believes everything is made up and that she just incorporated his delusions, but you don't get the time bleed throughs like you did with Sam. The last ep of the first series starts, at least for me, to really question if everything is really a dream world. As of yet nothing is definitive one way or the other.
One of the reasons I've heard for A2A coming about, and admitidly this was an absurd excuse, was the fans took a certain type of ownership to LOM, and there was enough disbelief that is was a coma and that everything was left so ambiguous that there was no real answer. While that sounds like bs I think it was some official thing, can't remeber for sure; it's been awhile. I'm an American, so I don't have all the up-to-date info on what is happening exactly with the series,, which is one reason why I'm having issues trying to find out when series two starts airing. I'm also coming at both LOM and A2A from a bit of a wierd viewpoint because the viewing order and how I came across both series was a bit messed up. I saw the first two eps of A2A before finding out about LOM, then watched LOM, and finally watched the rest of A2A. Before I saw LOM I really liked A2A. After I thought it was okay, and as the series continued it grew on me again, but not to previous levels.
If you're really sure you're not going to like it, I think I would wait it out and see. If they come up with some definitive answer that changes things then you might want to. It is kind of wierd to see the changes that the three returning characters have gone through, and I prefer the LOM sideline characters (like Nelson and Phyilis) to their A2A counterparts.
So, you're American?-what did you make of the US version of LOM? With the original, it's ending borrowed heavily from the Spanish movie "Open your eyes", which Tom Cruise did an inferior remake with, in "Vanilla Sky".
With the last ep of LOM in the original, I was hoping the psychologist that Sam was going to see, when he was out of his coma, was going to be Annie. It would have been sci-fi to do that, but the Open You Eyes element to it really spoiled it for me, despite working initially, because you realise Sam kills himself for the sake of a delusion, leaving a shattered mum, no doubt. Really, would prefer to see some kind of alternative world scenario to give Annie et al a real existence...so, maybe Sam could die in 'our' world, but have actual existence in the alternative world of the past. Just my view on things.
Found the orig. to be quite "B" series-didn't look so much a recreation of the 70s as a recreation of 70s cop shows. Is the US version more polished? It will screen here in Australia next week, so will have to decide quickly whether to follow it.
I was a big fan of the US series Carnivale, but they cancelled that after two series, and it was really getting interesting. Found it better than Sopranos, to tell you the truth. Intriguing series...so, if you like LOM, you might want to check that out.
Cheers.
Personally, tonight's ep has been the first one I've actually liked. It was also the first one, though, that was an original script and not something either pieced together from the UK scripts or pretty much an exact copy. Another thing was that it seemed like the actors had finally settled into their roles and there was some chemistry going on. (Of course, they showed ep 9 instead of ep 8 tonight, so there might have been some sort of character bonding that we haven't seen.) They've also thrown in some curve balls that weren't in the original such as Gene has three daughters, one of whom Sam just slept with before finding that bit out (<-- don't know how it will play later so just in case).
The big thing that bothered me with the first 7 was that it just seemed a miricale Sam wasn't thrown in an asylum. They kept harping on Sam acting nuts and being wierd, but it was all in front of people and in the open. Nor did the supporting cast have much screen time, so at times it came across as a one man show, and not being overly impressed with his performance I really didn't care what happend to him. There were also certain things that seemed rushed, which I'm putting down as cutting an hour show to 40 some minutes, but ep 7 had to be the worst, in my opinion, which was the one with his dad.
As for the US version being more polished and 70s true, I can't say for sure. Wasn't around for any part of the 70s, don't care to do the research because I don't want to get caught up on time period errors, so all I have to go on is what they say on this board, and I don't know if you've looked, seems kind of split. Some seem to gush on how like the 70s it is, others seem to like how it is like the 70s cop shows. There is some of it that is so cheesy that I tend to think it does follow more 70s cop show than real life, but again, wasn't there - don't know. They US version has a larger budget to work with, and I've read complaints from people who worked on the original on how they're envious cause the US guys can have say a dozen 70s cars in a scene opposed to one or two, but there have also been grips that the CG crew has let some major things slip through. Also, with the US version they keep using a filter so everything has a kind of dark yellowish type tint, which gets a little old.
Character portrayl is probably the biggest difference. Sam is a different kind of wierd, yet at the same time embraces certain parts of the era more; Chris is not as much of a div; Ray seems nicer at times while being a bastard the next; Annie, I think, is around more, and while Liz White seemed softer, I guess, Gretchen Mol is I don't know (I'm not a big fan of the character, but there is something about Gretchen Mol that bothers me); and Gene, is not the Gene Genie. Keitel's Hunt isn't as big, talks more than throws his weight around, and previously had been kind of a dry character for me (several of what previously been Hunt's one liners had been given to Ray, which didn't help anything.) He grew on me tonight, but they're going somewhere else with him than the UK one did, but I think I'm always going to prefer Glenister's Hunt.
I've never seen "Open Your Eyes" or "Vanilla Sky" or anything similar, so the ending didn't bother me with the original. That is one thing I know will be different because that would never fly on American television. ABC execs wouldn't approve it, and in a messed up universe where they'd go through with it, the FCC would come down on them, as well as the crazy parent and watchdog groups that are worse than the FCC. Disney wants to keep the parents happy, probably even more so than the FCC, ergo, assuming they make a real ending to the series, it will play out differently. (I've always been one that couldn't accept the coma answer for the origianl LOM, so I'm hoping that A2A will give it a different spin to something better, and that they'll be able to convince Simm to come back for a bit. He seems more dynamic than Alex.)
I just saw the original for the LOM for the first time sometime this past September/October, can't really remember when, and really liked it. I do remember that I had not gotten all the way through both series before the US version started playing, though, and I had really high hopes for the US version because then I figured I wouldn't have to go through the hassel of trying to find the rest of the UK version. In my opinion, the US version really sucked in comparison to the original. The 9th ep gave the series a second wind for me, and I'm finally starting to believe the series is going to have some originality to it, and has some potential. I don't care for the character portrayls with the US version nearly as much, so for me the UK version is probably always going to rate higher.
Sort of to put some of this in perspective, though. The last time I liked a US made tv show enough to really follow it was I think around 10 years ago. That was when the ones I watched all the time (pretty much all on stations like CBS, ABC, and NBC) started getting yanked and replaced with "reality" tv, which I can't stand. Between life and how long the reality phase lasted, I really haven't cared or found anything that has held my attention until this past autumn, and even then there were only four: one show being adapted from a book series I read, so I wanted to see what they were going to do with it; two others LOM and A2A, which I genuinely liked; and then the US Life on Mars remake, which I've just stuck with until now mainly because I didn't have anything better to do during that time slot and wanted to see what they were going to do to it. Three of those I had to follow online, which is a first for me, and I hate torrents and can never get the damn things to work, so it wasn't the easist thing in the world.
There is a site I use from time to time that did have at least one or two of the US eps if you wanted to just preview those to see if you'd be interested in watching the rest. It is a Chinese based site, but the first couple that pop up in the search results had been the US Life on Mars. The UK ones had Chinese subtitles, don't know about the US ones, but it wasn't really bothersome.
www.tudou.com
Sorry if I've asked this before, but do you know how many eps of the first US series are in store? 24?
Re depiction of the 70s-LOM seemed to be pretty nostalgic, perhaps. That Arnie movie "The last action hero" has a satirical look at that kind of cop boss and subordinate relationship, but did see a little of one late night movie where it was played straight...they just didn't realise how stupid it seemed, I'm guessing.
Re Open Your Eyes-I highly recommend it. It too is an intriguing storyline, and I didn't mind the ending so much because the context was different. Think it could be a classic movie. Has Penelope Cruz in it...but then again, she was also in the mediocre remake of the film!
If I am to watch the US version, I'm glad it's on a particular commercial network here and not another. The former number one network is notorious for starting shows and ditching them if they don't catch straight away...that's no guarantee or course that this other network won't do the same. Be really annoying to get into the show then have it shifter around the schedule and then taken off.
Re US dramas-I'm trying to remember what I watch. House for sure. But nothing much else really, at the top of my head. Could be wrong. Did used to watch shows like the Law and Order with Goren, but stopped now. Did hear that the US were remaking some Aussie sit-coms, like Kath & Kim (which the Aussie fans have hated in comparison to the original) and Stupid, Stupid Man. I watch the Aussie version of the latter and really like it, which is surprising, considering I've had to overcome my prejudice that Aussie sit-coms suck (are sketch comedies are world best practice, in my view though).
I didn't look at your spoiler just in case I watch it!
Re characters-not au fait with your lingo-"div"? And you're American right? Is that a Brit term or a US term? I know that in the original LOM I'd often write down phrases I had no idea what they meant in order to look them up later!
If the US version doesn't go down the original way, then it might be interesting to see how they DO solve the problem. My 'solution' was to give the 70s people a reality...don't like Sam killing himself for a fantasy...that makes him nuts. Don't want Sam to be nuts!
Cheers.
Number of US eps in first series: I'm not really sure on that. So far I think I've heard something around 17, but that seems really low. I've also heard ABC bought 9 originally, and then ordered like 13 more, so maybe 22. The issue is coming from them splitting it. They origianlly aired 7, went to hiatus to keep filiming, and I'm not sure how many came from that.
Yeah, I'm American, I've just been reading and listening to too much of the Brit stuff lately. When I do that I start picking up some of thier stuff without realizing it. To the best of my knowledge "div" is a british term that I always took to mean moron or idiot, that I've actually picked up from the original LOM - its something Chris would get called from time to time, mostly by Ray, I think.
Yeah, like I said before, I've never really believed the coma excuse. There was just something that didn't sit right.
re the coma excuse-actually, I think that was necessary to do, so, no problem there for me. The problem for me is the nature of the experiences Sam had. That was the problem for me. Some kind of 'magic' wouldn't have bothered me-i.e. some kind of method to make Gene and Ray real, and of that time. If they tried going into depth on that, it might have sucked for not making that much sense.
On this point- in what year is A2A set? In that year, how old are Gene and Ray etc? Years older than in LOM? I get the feeling that A2A would suck, but maybe your answer can provide me a bit of hope or something!
Re Sam-don't know if you watch Doctor Who, but Simms played The Master in the three part finale of last series, I think. I absolutely loved his first episode as The Master-it reminded me of Tom Baker's Doctor Who, from decades ago. The writing for his character declined in subsequent episodes, but I think he could make a great Doctor Who in future.
Like LOM, the current Doctor Who is a bit of a B series for me-has the occasional brilliant episode, but some aspects of it aren't that good. I don't consider the current Doctor Who producer to be a genius or anything.
What other Brit shows you watch? For me, it's mostly comedies...but nothing recently. Really enjoyed the second series of Nighty Night, and The IT Crowd. Really funny, and a big improvement on their first series.
re A2A year: The first series is set in 1981, but I don't know if they plan to stay in 1981 for series two or move forward; I know I read something concernig it, but I'm pretty sure it was fan speculation. The characters style has changed a bit for the different time, like Ray has a perm, and Chris acts a bit more grown up, usually. I'm not sure how old the guys were meant to be in LOM, and from what I remember they might look a few years older, but it would be nothing more than you would expect guys would normally age in a seven/eight year time span. Specifics about there looks are a little hazy cause I've been watching LOM more recently and so the 1973 look is more fresh in the mind.
re Dr. Who- When I started looking at stuff online and trying to track down parts of series two of LOM I came across Simms as the Master in Dr. Who, but only saw the last ep of that series and bits and pieces on sites like Youtube of the rest of his performace. I agree that he could be a great Doctor, but at the same time I think I'd like to see him as the Master again as well.
My main problem with Dr. Who is that it's shown at like 4 am one day during the week where I live, so I sort of lost incentive to watch it. I've seen a few eps of the fourth series, though. The other thing, and this is probably more because he's really been the only one I've seen as the Doctor, was that I liked David Tennant and with the announcement coming out that Matt Smith is taking over I sort of got discouraged about it. I picked up on the music more than the show, but then I usually like scores of sci-fi stuff; makes for good background music when I'm working of stuff.
I do like LOM over Dr. Who, but I think that has more to do with some of the eps I did see of Dr. Who the effects seemed sort of cheesy, which is one of the fastest ways to put me off a show. Dr Who is more the type of show I watch when I'm in the mood for something light, yet still has a plot, but I don't have to pay much attention to it.
re other Brit shows: Like I said in an earlier post it's been awhile since I've really watched much tv, and I'm starting to get back into British tv same way as American. We got BBC America at home for a couple years, and when we did I'd watch stuff like My Family, Are You Being Served, saw an ep or two of Coupling, and there may have been one or two others I don't remember. The main one I took away from that was Jekyll with James Nesbitt. Most of it was stuff that would be on between when I got home from school until dinner. After that my parents took the tv over and they've never really liked british stuff. The other problem was we started getting BBC America I think it was the summer before my last year of high school, and it stopped sometime during my first year at the university, and the university I go to has never had BBC America since I've been here.
I have a list of things I want to see of British stuff, and it will be a matter of finding a place to watch at least most of a series online to see if I want to bother getting it, but I want to see Blackpool, The Devil's Whore, State of Play, I've heard mix stuff about Spooks but think I'll give it a try. I've seen the first two eps of Demons, and even though it is cheesy and not likely to go anywhere I'd like to see the rest of the series since it is only six eps total. I have on order Tuesday, which is a movie that sounded interesting and I like several of the people in it, so I have hopes. In general worldwide I like more drama or action, but the British comedies usually rank higher than others.
With British stuff I'm getting to where I follow actors more which is probably due to having to find everything via the internet. American stuff I tend to take more on the overall show rather than by the actors, but I also don't care for a bunch of the newer American actors coming up. I miss people like Bill Murry, Harrison Ford, Robin Williams (his comedian stuff) and more that generation, though that may have something to do with the general trend of cinema as well.
I'm trying to suss out the timeline in A2A to see whether I think it sucks or not...LOM was set in the 70s, right? And Sam's present was in the 2000s, right?
So, this new character in A2A is from the 2000s, right? And they get a knock on the head and end up in the 80's, right? If Ray and Gene are real, then they should be around 10 years older.
Don't give away any spoiler anything. But, I'm guessing that maybe Sam and this other guy could be part of an experiment or something. Actually, in LOM you seemed to get threads which were suggestive, but maybe didn't go anywhere. E.g. Sam having to resolve crimes back then. He did that, but nothing happened...maybe the producers got greedy and wanted to keep dragging things on. Personally, it would have been better to either:
have Sam resolve those crimes in his head, wake up, and discover that it was all a dream. BUT, seeing as they kept the series going, you got more invested in the other characters, so you want them to be real, so...
they end up being real, which requires a magical explanation of what happened, which is fine by me.
Like I said before, I got excited by the prospect of present day Sam meeting a psychologist when he recovered...I was HOPING it would be Annie. No such luck! Be good if she was older or something.
Re Doctor Who-fans of the original view Tom Baker as THE Doctor. He redefined "cool"-he was way cooler than Fonzie...but that is looking back as an adult on Happy Days-so vacuous a character! Re The Master and Simms-like I said, his first episode was so Tom Baker like...the writing really suffered later. The show is occasionally great, but often cringeworthy...another B series. Speaking of which...I'd class Battlestar Galactica as this, but it's really important, I feel...the first true post 9/11 series.
re you liking the original Gene Genie-like I said before-to me it seems to recreate a 70s show. Which can't be done, I don't think. Only got vague memories of Brit show The Sweeney, but that may still be a good show of that era and you could probably see who Gene was modelled on. Remember liking that show in any case...but can't remember anymore. Saw another old fave a few years back...Starsky and Hutch...also of that period. It seems totally implausible now...maybe The Sweeney avoids that fate.
You mention Are You Being Served...sheesh...I remember watching that as a kid. The good old single entendre was their forte! Too young to make anything of Mrs Slocumb's constant talk of her pussy! You find that funny? Different era...like the old Gene Genie!
He I saw the first ep of the US version of LOM last night! Sort of like the old 12 Monkeys storyline...watching it in the hope that I can change the past...i.e. get a better outcome than the original. Ray is funnier in the US version...he cracked me up once, but other comments were really too calculated. Doesn't sound real or very American...I mean that kind of banter.
Interesting use of light-blue for now, and sepia for then. Perhaps suggesting neither world is real? No spoilers please!
Also, a maths programme on the tv! That I can't believe! Suzanne Sommers or Jane Fonda aerobicising, I can believe...not educational content on US tv though!
In Australia, we had educational programme called, from memory, "The professor and the enquiring minds"...featured an American physicist or something who lived here and taught kids physics, Entertaining. Guy called Julius Sumner Miller, from memory. Lots of cool experiments and the question "Why is so?". Hard taskmaster, that's for sure!
Just remembered another UK drama I'm into-the A series, comedy/grungy drama Shameless. Classic.
A2A timeline: Sam was from 2006, went back to 1973, woke up 2006, and back to 1973. Alex (new main character) is from 2008, gets shot in the head, and goes back to 1981. For a better part of A2A, at least for me, it was dull cause Alex kept saying this is a coma, you're all hallucinations, etc, but in the last ep of series one there is some stuff that happens, which I'm going to leave it there.
re Are You Being Served- I'll adimt some of it went over my head, whether it was due to the, what I assume, was the laugh track drowning it out, not picking up on the meaning of certain things I was unfamiliar with, and at times having a really difficult time understanding a character's accent. It was more that I liked that over what else was on. It was something to shut the brain down between school being over and having to deal with homework.
re US Life on Mars- the first seven episodes are going to look real familiar after knowing the original, and I still think the UK pulled it off better. I couldn't find any chemistry between the characters at that point. What was aired here as ep 8 was when I saw a huge turn around, and it was also the first original ep. There has been major debate whether they are showing eps out of order or not, so I don't know how it is going to transfer to Austrailia. After seeing the ninth ep to air I don't think they're going out of order; they were just messing with a few things to keep the viewers on their toes. Now it has everyone up in arms about it, though, and the ratings seem to be taking a hit.
Ironically, many people who were mad at the US version being compared to the UK version and harping that it was original and no way was the Brit version better (despite not having seen it) are now complaining about the show and calling the new, truely original parts of the show terrible. Thought that has been the best from the US crew so far, personally. I could rant more about this, but I don't think I would be able to without throwing something out that could be spoilerish on accident.
re episode tinting- don't know if you realized it, but some of that was used in the origianl, it just went away after a bit. The US version continues to use the sepia tint, though there is nothing pushing either way that it actually means something - all conjecture at this point. My guess it has something to do with the differences in the production budgets, and a lot of US shows lately, especially dramas, seem fond of using tints, i.e. all the CSIs, Cold Case, I think maybe Medium or Ghost Whisperer - the last two I've never watched but from trailers the filming style doesn't look entirely straight forward.
re educational programs on US tv- took a class that said Disney had some quasi-educational stuff on at around that time, but it was more like nature show stuff than sit in front of a blackboard and lecture. That is something you're more likely to find now on the cable channel the local university uses. I think that is the only ep where the professor makes an appearance, though, so I'm chalking it up to there not being any real original thought to that episode.
re funnier Ray- in some of those earlier eps they give Ray some lines that had be Gene's in the UK, and you get a lot less Gene, but there are a few that are decent/good.
re A2A-when did you download that series? Wondering if it will ever make it on air here in Australia. Sounds like Gene and Ray should be around 7 years older for that series. Like I said, LOM really should have wrapped up the whole story in the first year, so that it wouldn't have mattered if you found out Ray et al were figments of Sam's imagination...but the second series of LOM just made you attached to them, so you wanted them to be real. Maybe on the orignal LOM board there is a rant by me on why I hated the ending of that. If you're interested, I could try and track that down. When Sam recovered, didn't you think Annie might be the psychologist he had to see? That would have been cool.
The idea of A2A just seems a desperate attempt to string out the story. That's my complaint about US shows-they are designed to run forever-they make it up as they go along, but the main landmark they aim for is to reach 100 episodes, so that they can syndicate the show in the US. Thought that the US series Carnivale was great...loved it, but it got cancelled after two series. Odd which stuff makes it and which doesn't.
Re "Are you being servied" being over your head...are you a young midget? Just kidding. The accents weren't a problem for me, just Mrs Slocumb's single entendre which I was too young to get at the time. They made a version of the show here in Australia, wich original cast members, I think. Occasionally Brit-coms did that.
If you get a chance, check out good Aussie mockumentaries like "We can be heroes" and "Summer Heights High" (former maybe called something like "Person of the year" in the US. Apparently Paul Newman, I think (or was it Robert Redford?) are fans of the former. Both shows by the same guy.
re US LOM-I noticed a couple of different things the show did in the first ep-where Sam seems to want to kill the small boy because he may kill his girlfriend in the future, as well as something else which slipped my mind.
Re tints in show-in the US the blue tint was way overdone-I know the Brit version had a sepia like colour for the past, but I don't think the present was tinted...if it was it was more subtle than the US version.
The US version seems more natural in its representation of the characters and there is more an emphasis on making things seem plausible, which I like. At one point though, Ray's increasingly complex jokes just seem really forced...and didn't really strike me as being authentically American...like Gene talking about "twirls". Had the same experience watching L.A.Law once-these old guys at a table who were buddies being rude to eachother-maybe you don't see that represented on US tv much, but that seemed more like how Australian's relate to eachother-didn't seem real with Americans doing it.
So, the US LOM will run around 24 episodes? That's more than the whole of the UK series. Do you think they will stretch the UK's first series out and then do another 24 on the second series of LOM?
Hmmm...not sure how I feel about the possibility of them milking the series to get at least 100 episodes out of it.
Cheers.
re A2A- I watched A2A, I think in November, maybe. I know I finished LOM before I watched A2A, and the US version had started airing, which was I think mid October. There was also a lot going on at that time, but, like I said, I think it was November.
I think one of the reasons I wasn't that upset over the LOM ending was because I originally went looking for the eps on Youtube, and came across a vid that showed like the last 10 minutes, so when I was watching the rest of the series I knew what to expect at the end.
re US Life on Mars- yeah, there were a couple differences; the thing where he is going to kill the kid really bothered me, but that may have been bringing in baggage from the original. Throughout the first seven eps there is heavy use of the UK scripts, but they change some stuff and splice together other stuff.
re American buddies insulting each other- happens all the time; I've never noticed on tv or film if it is/isn't there, but I see it happen a lot in life so I guess when it is there I don't really notice it. When it isn't there, there is probably a subconcious thinking of this isn't very close to reality, but it's tv. Don't expect much.
US Life on Mars length- From what was said before break it sounded like around 24. There have been more recent posts suggesting closer to 17, but some of the people making those claims I don't have much faith in because of other stuff of theirs I've read. I also hear that it keeps losing viewers, and if that keeps up I don't see ABC showing all of what's been made; just pulling the plug and throwing it in the vault.
I'd have to look at the ABC eps again, but I pretty sure they haven't been paying attention to whether what they were using was first or second series in the UK. There is a lot of splicing that went on in those first seven. For the past two eps that have aired in the States, and looking at the preview to the next one, the US series is doing as promised and doing their own thing. The first series of the US version is not going to try and stretch the UK's 8 into however many, and if it makes it another year, is highly unlikely to go back to taking so heavy from the UK series. There may be little elements that turn up from time to time, but for the forseeable future it is doing its own thing.
Personally, I like what they've done so far with their originals. It was nice to sit down and not be watching a rehash of something I'd already seen and prefered in its original format. Like I said elsewhere, though, there have been several complaints in regards to those two original episodes (and I know I'm asking too much, but I can't get intelligent responses out of people as to why they liked or disliked it), so we'll see what happens. If the show can't pick up steam soon, I don't think it wll be around much longer. Last I saw I think it had slipped to around 6 million viewers; not good news when less than 1% or the nation's population is tuning in.
Heard about the ratings for the US version of LOM. At what point does a show get in danger of being cancelled? The US has around 15X Australia's population, but your version of the show got a quarter of the total numbers who watched it in the US. UK version shown on non-commercial tv here (ABC TV), but US version on network tv, so, looks like it got way more viewers than the original version, unfortunately.
Re American buddies insulting eachother-just saying that it is unusual to see this way of relating to eachother in that way on US tv. Happens all the time here on Australian tv and probably UK tv...just seems fake when the US does it. Do have to give some plaudits to the US version of The Office though-that seems a real breakthrough in representation-you just don't expect to see ordinary looking people on American tv-and there's nothing special about them either. The usual cliche on US sitcoms is having a smartarse character and a moronic character-they're staple of US sit-coms. The Office doesn't really have that dynamic.
Re low ratings-so, can we expect to see user generated story arcs now? Hmm. That'll be fun (being sarcastic here). Often times giving the audience or test audience what they want just means that most people don't want it. Be better to see some vision for the project and sticking to it.
Was reading an article in my local paper, sourced from the US, about how the US is taking the show in a different direction...no coma or something. But, the show insiders are also saying they did that so the show would be open ended. This brings me back again to my point about US shows just churning out episodes for at least 5 years to get syndicated, then keep churning out more episodes until the show is cancelled suddenly, or they have to hurriedly end it due its being cancelled.
Forgot last time, re tinted images and naturalism in US version-I suppose naturalism is fine, but if the situation is that these people are all figments of Sam's imagination, then maybe the original's weirdness served better, as you became aware that 70s characters might not be real.
P.S. I mentioned The Sweeney before-not sure if that is a BBC show from the 70s-had a great theme in any case, and I'm pretty sure that Regan in that show would be the archetype which Gene was based on.
Cheers.
Here's the difference: the BBC has no commercials. Meaning no advertising. Meaning no pressure to get numbers, lest the show lose a *beep* of money. You follow? The BBC folks knew they were only doing two seasons, and they did it great, but this also allowed them to make no secret that Sam was in a coma the whole time. There wasn't any mystery there, other than, say, the question of whether or not he'd emerge from it.
It's a totally different business model here.
And by the way, if you're watching: who's to say these people are indeed figments of Sam's imagination?
It's why you gotta spend more time actually WATCHING the show, than bloviating on these message boards.
Cheers to you...
re ratings- I think it all depends on the network, the show, and all the other factors that play in as to when the show is in danger of cancellation. Just know it's low enough now where the scales are easily tipped depending on an increase or any more of a decrease in viewership.
Not sure exactly what you mean by "user generated story arcs." Little more explanation please.
re "open ended"- yeah, kind of saw that a bit with tonight's ep. Bunch of stringing along that could be another theory, and then a kinda blah ending that was kind of felt like why did I just watch tv for the last 50 minutes. Looking at the last few eps to air over here, they are doing a great job of having a case story line and then have the whole issue with Sam, but it feels a little forced in the writing department when they're trying to combine the two. It could stand to be a little more subtle in places. I don't know if you've seen Sam's neighbor yet, but I was disappointed that she didn't turn up in this one. There would have been some good places to throw her in, and instead... argh. Can understand on one level, frustrated on another.
Now to spin off and be ridicuously optimistic, maybe by "open ended" it will just be something that is never fully answered. You have an ending, but it is ambiguous as to what really happened. There were a bunch of people that felt that way about the original LOM, and it paved the way for A2A. Maybe the US companies are trying to make it so they can pick up A2A and do their own thing with that. You could do some wierd stuff with both shows going at once and occasionally have the realities bleed through and get Alex and Sam having to deal with each other on top of whatever is truely happening to them. Don't know how you'd plan the filming schedule for that one, though, since you've got three of your main characters in both and you couldn't keep A2A in NY. Los Angeles was suggested when this came up somewhere else, and as a setting it sounded good. Don't know how well some of the NY type characters would transfer, though.
re Sweeney- I've heard quite a bit that a lot of the original LOM sort of used that type of show to pull from, but The Sweeney is probably the one I hear the most, so the character you mention probably was the basis for the Guv.
Do you think that LOM can survive with an average of 6 million viewers?
Re user generated story arcs-I mean where the show insiders lurk in forums and grab onto ideas that seem popular. Hollywood movies do something similar...they have screen tests. Usually these tests mean that the movie makers have have happy clappy endings. And people can still avoid the movie, despite it testing well. I prefer the show to have its own vision, which it stays true too.
Was watching the premiere of Lost last night, and one of the new characters said "Really?" when informed that the Scottish guy was pressing a button every 108 minutes to save the world. To me, that's a sign that the show's insiders lost faith in the story, perhaps.
Saw the second ep last night of LOM. The first ep got a great review by someone here and the second ep got a bad review by a different writer. Wasn't a fan of the second ep-some maudlin dialogue in it. The original also had its flaws. And what was Wall E doing in it!?
Re Sweeney-I think that maybe a driving force behind the original is the idea of what would happen if you put a modern day cop in with the Sweeney.
P.S. what was that blackboard at the end of the 2nd ep of LOM? Did Sam write that, or is that just a narrative device for the benefit of the viewer? I mean, the list of what is possibly happening to Sam.
P.P.S. if you like LOM, maybe check out these movies with intriguing premises:
Open your eyes
Dark City
The 13th Floor
The Matrix
all great films.
re 6 million viewers- my gut says no; granted my gut isn't the most reliable, but I don't see a network holding on to it. When they were getting ready to go to hiatus I read some where that one of the ABC execs liked the show, and that is what kept it going and getting more eps in the first place. I think with the low viewership, though, it has a good chance of being cancelled. If it was on a cable network, with 6 million it might have more of a comeback chance later on. Since it had/has the support of some of the higher ups in the company, I think it has a good shot at showing the whole season, but not a good renewal shot.
re story arcs- It is kind of early to tell. They said from the beginning they were going in a different direction, which they've begun to do, and really the only thing people seem to be dead set against would be if it was a coma. This is the only board I look at for the US version, so unless the writers took something from another board this doesn't seem to be happening, yet anyway.
All I'm going to say about Wall-E is to keep an eye on him. There is some stuff later on in the ep with the Russians and the ep with Ray's brother that start suggesting why it might be there (I'd give you the ep numbers, but with the debate as to the actual order I really have no idea). It is one of those things that I wish I had paid more attention to in the earlier eps, and now the wonderful ABC website keeps dropping the pre-hiatus eps, so I need to go fishing to re-look at some of those Wall-E scenes.
re blackboard- like I said ABC's site has dropped the early eps, so I can't look right now, but if it was the board I'm thinking about, Sam was writing down the explanations as to why and how he got to 1973. While Sam did write it, I think it also is a narrative device for the viewer. Like in the Brit version the voice over in the beginning listed the three things: coma, time travel, or insanity. The Amer version says something about not knowing how or why, so I think it is sort of a list for slow and/or unimaginative people as to what is going on. They show a flashback type clip in the ep that just aired over here that shows what looks like a small blackboard in Sam's apartment that has the list on it again, and at that point it is most likely just a narrative reminder of all the possibilities or that UFO was something that crossed Sam's mind before.
I'm curious how you'd feel if the show was axed. Like I said before, the thought of a show that runs forever doesn't really appeal to me. Sometimes you watch B series and you sort of wish they'd be axed. I used to watch Jessica Alba's "Dark angel" which was a true B show, but I wasn't sorry to see it go, or show's like "Angel". Bionic Woman was showing here but has disappeared...if it's still going, I won't get DVDs for it. Smallville is something that I am not that into, but watched the last series, I think, on dvd, as free to air had not show it. Not sure if it is worth hiring dvds to see it. Be nice if the damn thing got axed so I know I'd not have to keep watching it!
Glad to hear that shows like Lost have an endgame, though it still seems if the show is making it up as it goes along.
I thought that The Sopranos was to be a one series series, but I got annoyed when it kept going...got over that though.
Would you be happy for LOM to turn into a Days Of Our Lives type long running series? With the show continually putting off revealations etc? That's my main gripe...interminable series that you sort of have an unhappy marriage to.
Re blackboard in LOM-wondered if it might have been a Heroes type device-where you get episode titles seemingly in the world but which you know are just juxtaposed over the scenery. Be clearer if you saw Sam writing on that board. Back to Heroes...hmmm another B series...likeable, but infinitely stupid...god I hope it gets axed sometime soon!!
I don't think I'd care one way or the other if the show was axed, at least right now. I started watching because I was hoping it would be good enough where I wouldn't have to track down the rest of the British series, but was sadly disappointed. I kept watching it because it gave me an hour's rest during the week where I shut my brain off. Now that the original stuff is going on I'm more intrigued, but I really don't give a damn about the characters one way or the other, which for a show like this I really think is a must. With the UK series it took I think two eps, this one I'm 10 eps in, a character could walk off a cliff and I'd just wonder who would replace him/her. I'll watch it as long as it is on or until it gets really bad, but if news were to come out tomorrow that they've dropped it would just be 'damn, there goes the only show I watch.'
If Life on Mars turned into a Days of Our Lives type thing I would definately stop watching it. It is not a show I think could realistically could be sustained well for a length like that. Too much would be sacraficed to try and keep things going. I could see them doing a bunch of false leads and trying to build tension as they ran through the list of explanations for Sam being in the past before finally the show just sank into nothingness. It would be a bit like Desperate Housewives, where I really liked the first season, but by mid season two it was nothing but a soap that is a slightly higer quality because they aren't airing five days a week. The only thing that might save it at that point is if the 70s cop aspect could be kept at a good level.
If the US writers could find a good medium for the show, I think they might be able to pull off two seasons, maybe push it to three, or that might be the number I could stomach. This is only if the number of eps I've found for this season is right. IMDB and Wiki are are both saying 15, and I can't find anything suggesting more, so maybe they could get away with 30 eps. If it takes off they won't stop, but the numbers I see on viewership keep dropping, so this will probably be it.
The other thing is I'm not a big fan of any of the actors either. Most of Keitel's other work I've never seen and don't really care to find it. On another thread someone mentioned something along the lines that he just is his characters and doesn't need to act, which in my opinion if he really is that way and not really acting he can't be much of an actor, and from the sounds of it most of his roles are pretty close to the same things, so I doubt if he is that great. Imperioli I think I liked better on the Sopranos; Gretchen Mol I've never heard of (though I think I like her portrayal the best); the guy that plays Chris is only so-so; and other times O'Mara just irritates me, and I like Simm's voice better.
While I thought the concept of Heroes would be interesting at first, I never thought it would last in main stream so didn't watch it, and as it continued and overheard previews I was glad I didn't bother. Now that they have started I think their third (?) season it just sounds pathetic and desperately trying to hold on to a non reality show hit. You mentioned Bionic Woman, which I think over here only lasted part of a season. The Sopranos I overheard while working on stuff when it went to A&E cause my dad watched it, but it very quickly went downhill.
I'm not far enough into LOM to know whether I want it to be axed or not. I mentioned 'bad marriages' before...so, I can be the type of person that sticks with a show for some inexplicable reason and so prefer it to be axed instead of just stopping watching it.
One test of a B series is whether you can watch consecutive episodes on dvd or whatever. A network here started screening eps of Dark Angel back to back at a late timeslot, to finish it quickly, and I found that quite a chore. Smallville is hard in short doses too, when I watched it on DVD. Don't think I'd ever revisit the original LOM, seeing as I found it so B-but it did have intellectual pleasure first time around.
Watched some terrific Australian mockumentary series in We Can Be Heroes, and Summer Heights High. Like the original LOM they had their pleasures and didn't outstay their welcomes...those two mockumentaries were only one series long, and they were short series too...less than ten eps, I think. Be good if that became the standard in future, instead of interminable series.
You mentioned Desperate Housewives. I watch that. Still am. It's been mentioned that one of the series of that was the worst...don't remember which one-2nd or 3rd or something. The 'bad' series was the one I actually liked more that the first series. Goes to show, you never know. Found Lynette really unlikeable in the first series, but she's warmed up a bit since then. Was thinking I could ditch the show now that it's jumped 5 years into the future, but I'm sticking with it so far, and it hasn't disappointed.
Re Heroes-like I said, I find the premise incredibly stupid, but still enjoyed it. They have to move the goalposts now, to keep it going. In the boards for that show and The 4400, I've posted up my observations on how much Heroes rips off The 4400. The latter got axed...not sure who Heroes will rip off now! The 4400 was a B show, but a nice, low key one. Sad to see it axed, as I was getting into it, and even watched the last series on dvd, as the network here had stopped showing it, at least on standard definition.
Re Sopranos-not sure it was as good as it was made out to be. Like I said before, the US series Carnivale was great tv. Sad to see that axed, but fun while it lasted. Not sure how many awards that show won, but it deserved recognition. I think some viewers petitioned to save it, but nothing happened.
I was a late convert to Buffy too. Did find its spin-off, Angel, more of a B programme. Surprised that a show like Buffy could be better comedy that the so called sit-coms that would win awards.
The original LOM is a series that I can sit through multiple episodes of, whereas the American version, praticuarlly the first seven, I was having problems watching a whole ep at a time. I was trying to do a rewatch of the first seven eps before it started up again and never made it all the way through. I was able to watch ep one in one sitting, and ep two in one sitting, ep three I think was two, started the fourth, saw about half of it in five chunks, and had to stop. I think out of all the eps in that first block the fourth ep was the one I disliked the most, for a number of reasons.
Mockumentaries are something that I've can't really get into. I know everyone loves the American version of The Office and recently I saw Borat for the first time, and I just can't get into them. I looked up come clips on Youtube and Summer Heights High looks like it might be interesting, but I'm going to have to find a better quality; some of the sound was really bad.
I think that for shorter series you're going to need better writers than what they have now. Also, I think they need to sit down right after they get approval to go ahead with the show and do a rough outline of where the want the show to finally end up. With sitcoms obviously this wouldn't be necessary, but with shows like Life on Mars, Heroes, etc (mostly dramas and action type shows) they need to be sure that they are going somewhere with the show and at least have a vague idea how they're going to get there.
Was able to find the opening of Carnivale for the first ep, and my guess would be that tanked because the religious zealots got mad. One of the fastest ways to get rid of a show is to piss off one of those groups. There was a show that ran some eps a few years ago called something like The Book of Daniel that was running on NBC over here. It was sort of a comedy with some more serious undertones. I thought it was well written, good cast, and an interesting concept, but something about it managed to piss off the religious groups and away it went.
You also mentioned petitions to save shows, and those very, very rarely work. There was a show I was watching a year or so ago that was made in Canada and licensed to Lifetime. It wasn't the type of show Lifetime usually showed or dealt with, so when the first season was done, they screwed around and held the rights until all the contracts were up and the people making the show moved on. There were countless petitions for that show, some of which people are trying to keep going, but even the production company that made the show split in two several months back, so there pretty much is no way it's coming back.
Like you, I was a late Buffy convert, as in only catching reruns long after the show was done late. When it was originally airing, I would catch glimpses and thought that it would hold more horror than what it really did, and wound up watching an ep years later in the middle of the day because there was nothing else on. I never cared for Angel as a character when he was on Buffy, so the spin off really didn't hold my interest, and never liked the grouping of characters as much. If I remember they all had chips on their shoulders for something, which works fine I think for one or two characters, but not the whole cast.
re having trouble watching US version of LOM-my God, I've NEVER had so much trouble sitting through something as when I was watching "Jericho"! Is that show still going? One community network over here in Australia, Channel 31, has something called "Fish TV", which is like their test pattern (remember those?) and it's just a live shot of an aquarium with fish in it...man, I'd rather watch that than Jericho! Tortured myself trying to watch that show...had some intrigue, but I'd rather someone just sent me a post card with a synopsis of what is going on every now and again.
Re The Office and Borat-loved the latter, but not so much the scripted parts in the movie. The Office-big fan of the original-found the couple much cuter in the UK version. Watching US version, but it's going to go forever or until it gets cancelled. A few eps back I was wondering whether to stick with it, but the next week was laugh out loud funny. It's hit and miss really. Interestingly, I think both LOM and Office did go for some straight clones of characters-Chris in both LOM shows have a certain very similar look about them, as do Tim/Jim. They're not that similar looking, but they have a certain quality which is very similar, if you know what I mean.
re Summer Heights-made by the network which screened the UK version of LOM and it was well received here and in the US, I've heard. One character was in "We can be heroes", but SHH isn't really a sequel. WCBH might have been called "Person of the year" in the US. Not sure who screened it...probably a small network seeing as how the US doesn't really screen overseas shows (hmmm...what was the matter with the original LOM which no network would screen?).
You mention You Tubing shows-I don't do that unless it's necessary. Any chance of getting your local video store to get Summer Heights High? Some sites may have better quality footage, but I think it's important to compensate the guys behind these shows, plus it's more convenient to me, seeing as I don't have my own PC-in other words, I'll rent dvds. First time I've ever bought a dvd, with Battlestar Galactica.
Re Carnivale and zealots...I'd be surprised if that was the reason the show got yanked. Buffy had similar stuff to wind the zealots up, but it hung around for years. Maybe the difference was Buffy was on a network and Carnivale wasn't and didn't get a big enough audience? Did you watch Firefly? Another Whedon show. B series, but interesting. That girl has got me captivated...wanting to see more of her, but it looks like the show is dead-though they did release a movie the other year. Hopefully they'll do more. Want to find more out about her character...very interesting.
Re Buffy-I had it pegged as a stupid American show, but I saw a promo for the "Hush" episode...it looked to rip off that movie I recommended to you here, Dark City. Watched the ep and got hooked. Caught up with the show via dvd. Angel seemed a contradictory character in his spin off, but in a bad way. The show never really seemed to know what it wanted to be and it was just worse at doing what the Buffy show did so well...comedy and drama. Willow and Xander were so cute-actually, Buffy was the weakest link in that show! X Files was another show I got to love after avoiding it for ages, thinking it a stupid American show. Something like Supernatural is a B show which is highly derivative of Buffy and X Files but not as good as either.
It seems to me that all the crap American shows are in prime time here in Australia and the good stuff gets cancelled or bad time slot. Was enjoying Freaks & Geeks, but that got cancelled...another failed petition for that one, too. Also like Weeds, but haven't seen that for ages. Same in the US? I.e. re good stuff on late and crap on prime time?
*** P.S. I'm running some polls on music-looking to get your top 3 bands of all time from the US and British Isles...and if you are Beatles or Metallica fan, your top 3 studio albums by them. Let me know if you want to vote in that...well, just vote here, if you want to.
Cheers.
re Jericho- if I'm not mistaken, that was one of the few shows a fan petition actually worked for. I think it originally ended with no ending and the fans made enough noise they did some extra eps and it ended. Personally I never saw it. That was during my period of I'm not going to bother with television cause nothing is ever on.
re Chris- to me the US Chris looks very similar to UK Chris, but I think personality wise that UK Chris is more the clueless klutz, class clown type whereas the US Chris seems more like the young kid who knows what's what, just lacks in experience; almost like maybe he came from a cop family.
re screening- To my understanding, BBC America showed some of the origianl LOM eps here. Unfortunately I don't have access to BBC America any more, so I'm not 100% sure, but at least on their site right now it has A2A listed as one of their shows, so LOM probably aired as well. I think it isn't necessarily that it is little networks that screen foreign shows, I think it is the more expensive cable channels like HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax that people have to pay extra on top of the regular cable bill to get that are more likely to show foreign anything. I looked up Summer Heights through a couple places and noticed that it is HBO that is doing the State side release for it. If I remember correctly, when I go on vacation sometimes and the hotel has one of those channels sometimes I'll come across something foreign.
re Youtube- this is not my favorite site to watch stuff at, especially since they have the 10 minute limit thing, and while I believe it is important to support the people behind the show, sometimes if I want to see a show there are times I don't have a choice but to find it online. At school we get a couple channels that are foreign, but they aren't in English and I think only the Asian one consistently carries subtitles. There are many, many, many shows that never make it to a region 1 DVD format, and until this past Christmas I had no way of viewing a non region 1 DVD. There is also the issue that if the DVD is anything other than a region 1 that means that I had to buy it, and it is one thing to put out for a rental and another to buy something you aren't sure if you're going to like it. I actually watched all of the original LOM online, which actually convinced me to buy it, the first series of A2A, and a couple other British shows - ones I know will never make it to American soil.
re Summer Heights- given the size of town I'm in, it is unlikely that the rental stores will get it - they have a pretty piss poor selection even of American stuff, but maybe because it has the HBO label attached to it they'll have it for a bit. I checked Netflix (an online rent place) and they're supposed to have it. Given the way things are going lately I really need to break down and get an account. I'm going to have to wait and see any way it goes, though, because Summer Heights isn't scheduled to be released in the States until this coming Tuesday.
re Carnivale- like I said, I only saw the opening of I think the first ep where some creepy priest guy, at least I think it was a priest, did a monologue, and I read the summary on IMDB, and from that it sounds like people would have problems with it - especially the main character as a Jesus figure that isn't completely pure. The other thing it was on HBO, so they work a bit differently than many channels because of it being that more expensive cable channel.
Never caught Firefly, though I've heard great things about it, not as much about the movie, Serenity, I think. Meant to go see the movie when it was in theaters and never got a chance. The X-Files is something I've never been able to get into, and even when I got older the parts I saw genrally creeped me out. I've got an imagination that will take some of the premises they do and in the middle of the night will create all sorts of wonderful nigtmarish images so I can't get to sleep.
re time slots- right now it is starting to mix between good and bad stuff on in primetime. Pre-reality tv era, the good stuff was on in primetime, and where it fell in that chunk of time depended on what was in it, i.e. the harsher cop shows were on later and the light humor was on early. Then reality tv hit and pretty much everything went to the dog house. The few scripted shows that were able to make it through the reality era had a tendancy to be put on in wierd timeslots or started getting shuffled so more reality stuff could be shown. Now that we're starting to get back to scripted shows it's mixed. There are a lot of times the crap is being pushed, and they start screwing around with the better stuff so that it pretty much has to have a large cult type following to survive.
I have a theory that the companies got used to making more money when the reality kick was really high. Now they aren't making as much because actual scripted shows take more to produce. Then there is the issue that if a scripted show kicks off the people involved in the making of that show usually want more money. The companies got use to their bigger profits, and now don't want to put funds into real shows.
I also have to wonder if maybe audiences are starting to transition away from having the attention to follow a scritped show. In the reality crap, you could miss some eps and it wouldn't matter because essentially the same thing happens each week, and catching up doesn't take very long. With a scripted show one week can be a major turning point in the show, and the no one believes in showing reruns over here anymore, so it can be harder to keep up with a show. There is also the fact that reality stuff has been going on for about ten years (for example Survivor has been going since 2000 and because of shorter seasons has hit season 18). I think there is getting to be a generation that has grown up with reality tv, and I really wonder at times if many of them really get into scripted shows that aren't cartoons (which is another aspect of television I think has gone downhill and is attempting to make a come back). I think to get a show to survive sometimes you have to get the younger generation hooked, and I just wonder sometimes.
I remember the title Freaks and Geeks, but I can't say I remember ever seeing it when it was on. Weeds is another show that was on an extra pay cable channel, so I don't know much about it. It seems though that if a show on one of those extra cable channels can survive a season, they'll be a round for a bit, course being US television that doesn't mean there will be a real ending.
re PS- I get most of my music from soundtracks, so I'm all over the board and most of the time I don't even know what band it is. I can probably name some of the composers for the movie scores I listen to better than bands.
re Chris in US version-I was actually wondering if Chris was a character in the show-he seemed to be such a wall flower. But in the 3rd ep here he finally earned his pay! The TV guide says that it will show next week here, but the network says it will be back in a couple of weeks...so, not sure what to make of that. Maybe they are going to start stuffing it around? Australian networks suck-they really move shows around the schedule and take them off if they don't rate right away. Hopefully tv will evolve so that networks aren't the only option and people can watch tv some other way, for free, legally.
Did hear today that on Australian i-Tunes, the Bowie title track is in the charts. Great song.
Did find the 3rd ep annoying. Maybe they're trying to woo female viewers, with all that blah showing Sam to be good with kids etc. Ironic, given that that previous episode he was thinking of killing a kid he thought might turn into a serial killer! Also finding some of the dialogue annoying (that happened with the original too-different kinds of annoying maybe...or maybe some of the same kind of annoying too!). E.g that hippy neighbour of his who keeps calling him 2B or whatever. Way too 'cute'.
Re US screenings-my gripe is this-the US actively seeks to show it's cultural product overseas, yet seems such a close shop at home. Gee, it was only a few years ago that the original LOM was screened...why do an American version? It seems to me that the ONLY place to see non-American shows is on cable. US politicians seem to fight against other countries 'dumping' their cheap product in the US, but the US could be argued to 'dump' it's product overseas...I mean that overseas countries buy these shows dirt cheap compared to what it costs to produce their own shows. That doesn't seem right to me. So, I just wonder how much the US actively shuts out foreign shows. It's not as if shows like this aren't good enough themselves and need to be remade by the US.
Re region 1-if you have a decent sized computer screen and can stand to watch tv on it, I hear that a PC can select ANY region so that a dvd from ANYWHERE will play on it. You'd just have to poke around in the options. Don't have my own PC myself, so don't know. Just heard that this is so. Home devices like dvd players are region blocked. Some of those may have a "World zone" option, or something similarly titled. That might be another option-it's not the same as being able to play a dvd from any region, but it's another option.
Re Netflix-not sure if that is the co I was with...maybe I was with Quickflix here-but I had trouble with their Battlestar Galactica dvds-they tend to get marked and that series seemed particularly bad at playing normally. Maybe it's the dvds they used or something.
Have heard that the US is remaking some Australian sit-coms. E.g. "Kath and Kim" (Australians seem to hate the US version. The local version is top rating when it's on). Also heard that "Stupid stupid man" is being remade for the US-I really like that show-and I've always been critical of Australia's sitcoms (generally they've been awful, I think, though our sketch shows are world's best practice, I think). Also heard that a failed Australian live action sit-com about school, is being into a cartoon by the US-they're claiming it's based on a successful Australian show, but the show never found an audience on was axed. Not sure of the title...maybe something like "After the bell" or something of the sort.
Re Firefly- it's not a classic-only one ep was particulary good, but I am intrigued about the young woman with special abilities in that show, so am hoping something new comes out which expands on that.
Re Freaks and Geeks, and Weeds- we get programmes on network tv here which are on cable only channels in the US. Apparently some of those US shows are too 'steamy' or whathaveyou for network tv there...no such drama here...network tv is happy to screen them. Which reminds me...in the 70s, commercial, network tv used to have Australian soaps/dramas/comedies where full frontal male and female nudity featured. It's more conservative now. Just funny how 'steamy' US shows on cable are nowhere near as explicit as Australian tv from decades ago.
Did see an excellent docu on Australian genre films called "Not quite Hollywood". Enjoyed American Quentin Tarrantino sharing his love of these films. His enthusiasm was infectious. Some of the films were no doubt shytte, but my interest has been piqued to see some of those films covered.
Sorry for the rant!
P.S. don't normally meet many people with no great love for music. I get the impression that many people can reel off lots of band names and how they rate them. If you can't name 3 bands from the UK or US that you really like, it's best not to vote. Don't you own any albums by any bands? Or compilations by a band which you like? If you can name 3 from the same country, vote!
What kind of cds do you own?
Cheers.
re Chris- Chris does get sidelined a lot, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because they want more of Ray and Gene being the typical 70s character, where Chris is sort of this young, sweet seeming guy. Or there is speculation he plays a different part in this 1973 world.
re other viewing options- I really hope they do someting. I really prefer to watch tv on my actual tv. I didn't get it because I thought it was a neat art piece. Something that pretty much no US channel does anymore is reruns, which I really think is a shame. During the reality tv era they weren't really needed, but now that they're returning to scripted shows I think they need to come back. You can draw an more people and if a fan misses an ep during regular season they can pick it up, or with a show like Life on Mars, you can rewatch and pick up clues that may have been missed the first time since you didn't know what to look for. This would be especially helpful since the ABC site keeps taking down the eps. As of now only the post hiatus ones are up, which is really annoying.
re 3rd ep- On one hand I appreciated the third ep because the overall plot was different from the UK series, and on the other hand I didn't like the parts with the kid that were lifted from the football ep of the UK version. They just didn't come across well, and I thought that the kid was a little snot most of the time. You mention the end of the first ep, and that alone was almost enough to make me stop watching the series. It felt like if Sam's character could even consider doing that in the first ep that there would be the element missing of Sam taking the moral high ground and trying to teach the 70s guys. In the end, I think there is a lot of that missing from the US version. Sam has his moments where he seems to do things the 2008 way, but for the most part seems to go along with the 70s. Granted he is more PC, but that ending on the first ep just did not sit right with me. From what I've heard they were originally going to end the first ep the way the UK version did, with Sam on the roof contemplating the definative step, and the only reason I can think of why they switched is they didn't think they could have their main character contemplate suicide - or whatever it would be in this version, depending on how reality goes.
As for Windy the Hippie, so far that seems to be her final apperance. The US version doesn't go to the apartment much, and I think all of the characters Sam starts interacting with from now on are some how job related. In one way that is okay, but at the same time Hippie Chick brought something a little different into play. I guess to me it just seem like US!Sam had something else, now only has his job and is perfectly happy with that, whereas in the UK version there was that more angsty thing of Sam is his job, but it is because he has nothing else, and the flat was haunted by the creepy test card girl.
The latest ep they showed here was again a decent ep, and original script for the most part. The only thing that ticked me off was at the end they did another scene that was copied word for word from the UK version. Everything worked well until they got to that point. The scene and lines did not fit for the US version of the characters, and I think they could have done something that fit much better but still got the same message across. It's something that for some reason the actors seem to get very wooden when they try to copy the UK version. They need to stick with stuff they've come up with themselves.
re US screening- I really have no way to improve this nor can I find any flaws. It is something I've tried to figure out, and can't come up with anything. The excuses that I've read on this board and heard from other people:
1-"we can't understand the accents"
My reply to that is it is because they've never tried to understand the accents and/or don't want to. It is something new to the ear, and I understand that there are people with heavy accents that are hard to understand at first, but if you listen to it enough you start to pick up on it. It doesn't take that long, and until you understand it there are always captions or subtitles. Of course, that would mean they'd have to read, the horror and how dare it is suggested.
2-"we can't relate to it because it they aren't American references"
Reply: Now you're being self centered idoits. I've used against those type of people that by that logic I shouldn't enjoy either the UK or US version because I wasn't alive in the 70s. And by that logic I shouldn't enjoy any book, moive, etc that came before the early 90s or references anything before then since I can't recall anything before that. Out of any arguement or excuse this one pisses me off the most because it shows how ignorant people are, that they are willing to stay that way, and they act proud of it. So what if you might not recognize the name of a person. Especially in LOM I found there was enough context that I could figure out what the general idea behind the reference. It is a mind set I just can't figure out.
The other thing I love about people like that is they're the first ones to complain that anyone dares to compare the US remakes to the original, or point out there is an original, are quick to attack anyone who has a different idea than they do, but are the ones that contiue to propogate the slur threads. I noticed that they're weren't many threads on the front page anymore arguing which is better, so one of these people had to throw a topic up about how they were sick of the comparison. There were also sevreal threads put up by a person that pretty much can't make a post without adding a slur to it. Sorry about the rant on this, but it really makes me mad when instead of actually talking and discussing the show, they do nothing but try to get fights going. In the end I believe it only hurts the board and sometimes the show because it puts people off. There was a board for another show I had watched that the reason I stopped going to that board was because all the people did was fight and insult each other.
The other thing about the US remaking everything is that I think part of it is left over from the Cold War years where if it wasn't American if was evil since the Communists were waiting around every corner for the chance to take over the US. The people running things right now are the ones who grew up in the time period, and I think that the strong dislike of non-American things was passed on to a better part of the post Cold War generation. This is definately not an excuse, but it is one of the only things I could think of why there is such a strong aversion.
re Region 1- Don't know about PCs and if it is a permenant thing for playing any region, but I run off of a Mac. That was the first thing I looked into to see if I could use the computer as an other region DVD player and just get the cables to attach it to the tv. With the Mac, it keeps track of you switching regions, and the fifth time it gets switched, it permanently stays on whatever region that fifth switch was. Since I uses it sometimes for region 1 DVDs I couldn't use it as an other player. Also, while the screen works great for photos and graphics, the resolution isn't the best for DVDs. Luckily I found a website that had a list of hack codes for different home DVD players, and was able to get a player on that list so now I have a region free player. It works great and gives me a little thrill of joy to know that I could play anything on it. I'm still reluctant to buy stuff though without seeing some of it first since it would be much harder to get rid of.
re remade Australian sit-coms- I've never watched the US version of Kath & Kim, one because it didn't look that good when they were showing the previews for the first season, and the actress that is playing the daughter I don't care for that much. I don't mind her in minor roles, but she is someone I tire of easily.
Cartoons over here have been trying to re-invent themselves lately. There was a chunk of time where there was a bunch of poor drawn, short stuff. They seem to be trying to find artists that can draw again, and going back to segments that last longer. One thing I've noticed with them is that many are produced in Canada, though I don't know where the concepts and stories are coming from. There is a show that was started I guess several years ago, Canadian made, that has hit the US recently called 6teen where I guess it is just a group of 16 year olds and what they do in the mall each day after school that runs on one of the cartoon channels over here. I've seen bits and piece, but I never thought it looked that great.
re network vs cable- What can I say? Americans like to pretend we're a bunch of prudes, especially when it comes to media. Part of it is that the people most offended by "steamy" or just plain nudity like to make a lot of noise and say it is polluting the minds of the youth, it's indecent, etc. I've always been of thought if you don't like what you see either change the channel or turn off the television; no one is forcing you to watch what you don't like. As someone who doesn't have access to the more expensive cable stuff that runs shows with more sex or nudity, that was the biggest adjustment to watching non-American produced stuff, simply because I didn't see it in what I had watched before. I remember the first time I saw the scene in UK LOM where Sam gets raped I was just amazed at how much of the girl they showed. Then the senses came back and it was like oh yeah, the US is one of the few countries that make a big deal over sex and nudity.
re P.S.- It isn't that I don't love music, it's just I don't usually have favorite bands. There are some albums I own by bands, but not many. Smash Mouth pops up quite a bit, some Red Hot Chili Peppers, Evanescence, and some 90s pop stuff. The ones I know aren't American bands/singers are the Sweet, Elton John, KT Tunstall, and Rogue Traders, though there might be one or two others I'm just not aware of where they're from. A lot of the time a favorite just depends on what mood I'm in. I also usually don't like enough of a band's music to call it a favorite. Most of the time I wait and try to find it on a compilation disc with many different artists where I like at least a handful of what is on there.
I mainly have soundtracks and scores for shows and movies, and the type of music ranges anywhere from jazz to metal to classical/neo-classical to rock. Saying that over three-fourths of my music collection is soundtracks is probably a low guess, actually. Most of those don't have a dominant group on them so what i listen to is usually pretty varied.
There are certaic composers I have a tendancy to like, such as Hans Zimmer (Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3, some work on 1, Lion King score music, haven't heard it, but the Dark Knight, and some others that aren't coming to mind right now), Yoko Kanno (a japanese composer who has done music for several animes that have an undercurrent of similarity but have some differences), some of John Williams stuff (though if you listen to too much in a row it all sounds the same with him). The other thing is that I mainly use an iPod now to listen to stuff, even though I think the quality suffers, and many times for soundtracks the spot for artist just says various, and I don't have easy access to the cases to see if it is on there.
One band that comes to mind that I really like is an American group called Trans-Siberian Orchestra. That is probably the only group in existance on the planet who's discs I own all of and am waiting for their next one.
-Sorry if any of the spelling is funky. My computer is acting up and is really delayed in showing the text after it is typed.
P.S-I've decided that it is a really good thing there is no character limit for imdb in these boxes. I think the two of us would have some problems.
the whole show is odd, if they go the coma/dream route... that just seems dumb overall to me as a show...
shareSorry about the length of the post I didn't realize it was quite that bad until later.
shareyea it was real long, how long did it take you to write it?
i don't think anyone would read the whole post, maybe skim it...
Re Chris being side-lined a lot...maybe they don't know how to write him. I've watched other shows where there are interesting sounding characters or funny characters and they just don't get any action. E.g. the fat employee in the Ellen de Generes sit-com of a few years ago...I'm guessing Ellen found him too funny so they put him on the back-burner so that she would get all the laughs. Or "Toofer" in 30 Rock-great sounding character, but they don't know how to write for guys like him and the other fat employee, so it's pretty much the Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin show now.
Re viewing options-I had in mind maybe internet tv some day, which is cheap or free. That way whoever puts on these shows aren't constrained by schedules and viewer numbers. I really hate the current network tv structure-Australians download a lot of tv shows to get by the networks shenannigans. Networks are now 'fast-tracking' US shows, but they still stuff you around because you don't know how long the network will keep faith with the show. Ofen it's not very long.
Some networks here are now putting eps online. There are apparently websites which allows you to have an address online so that you can view these eps from ANY country (even though they will block people from overseas. Might have to explore that myself some more. Think it's legal...I mean, you are watching eps from the host broadcaster online.
re 3rd ep-I liked the bit where the kid asked Sam to stop talking about his (Sam's) father. Sam kept on talking about his father though! Thought it would have been funny if the kid had had another go at Sam for doing that! Good anti-dote to all that schmaltz in any case.
Re Windi- I don't mind weird characters, but her calling him "2B" or whatever was just annoying. She could have called him "Pencil" in that case! There was a classic British grunge sit-com called "The young ones". That had a hippie too, but he was more engaging...loved that ep where the hippie goes around in circles explaining the life cycle of the bean or what-not. Windi is just annoying.
re foreign shows in the US (doesn't happen, I know)-I'm guessing that the US networks are just intrinsically biased. Perhaps they want to make money for themselves, so they re-do overseas shows. They will make some money exporting LOM back to Britain no doubt. You mentioned Kath & Kim. Wanted to follow that but never got around to it. Did see a special re Da Vinci Code for the Australian version. Kath's dancing always cracks me up, and she was hilarious in that ep. The actress did that schtick on a classic Aussie sketch show. Still hilarious. I've heard that Kim in the US version just doesn't debase herself like the Australian Kim.
Have heard that the classic UK grunge dramedy, Shameless, is being made for the US. I'm a big fan of the UK version but see no reason to watch the US version. Not sure if it is BBC, but it's really funny. Am watching the US version of LOM for that intellectually stimulating aspect I mentioned before. I'm like the character in 12 Monkeys or Vertigo...want to see history changed. 12 Monkeys references Vertigo...so, both good movies in any case.
Another thing re LOM-US...that twin towers scene...sort of wonder if that will somehow be important, but if the show is axed, we'll never know. Just thought that maybe it was important setting the show in NY.
re computer hack codes-that's a bytche. Not sure if there are workarounds for that. Might be.
re Canadian shows-it's like Australia was...cheap to make US shows there. Think X Files was shot there in Canada and many others too. Movies like Star Wars prequels were shot here in Australia for the cost benefit.
re prudish Americans-I was reading some letters to the editor about a network tv show made in Australia-it seems that there was full frontal male and female nudity in it. Maybe now that Australia has a non-conservative government, networks might push the envelope more now. The 70s was the hey-day in Australia for lots of tits'n'bums on prime time network tv.
re Music-you know the Rogue Traders? How? One of their songs featured on last years Dr Who. I own the album that came from...got a cheap two cd edition of that...2nd cd had remixes. Remixes were duds. Good main album though. I'd be surprised if you heard the band on commercial radio over there. Like I said, the US seems way too insular. Read an article yesty, I think, about Aussie duo The Veronicas scoring a chart here nowish in the US, from an album released over a year ago here in Australia. Maybe US stations didn't know they were Australians and forgot to boycott them? Apparently the act kept major stars like Britney and Lady Ga Ga off of top spot for a couple of months, nearly. I liked some of their songs from their first album, but I don't really listen to the kind of stations that play their music.
Re Soundtracks-I saw Death Wish 2 many years ago, and the soundtrack was very atmospheric. Bought the soundtrack, but without the images, it wasn't as good. Must find the exact version of the Carmina Burina used in the movie Excalibur. Really rousing. Also wish I had bought the soundtrack to the movie Halloween many years ago, as it doesn't seem to be extant now.
Do have Mike Oldfield's Tubula Bells, some of which was used for the movie "The exorcist". Do have a Michael Nyman best of, after really liking his work for Peter Greenaway, but I'm not sure if my cd has the exact versions of these pieces used in the movie. Because if they do, they don't seem to engage me so much.
re Trans-Siberian Orchestra-why not give this band your top votes for my poll? Not sure what the problem is for you. Really, if the phrase "the greatest" bothers you, just exchange it for "your favourite". I feel the same way about Coldseed as you do about T-S O. Coldseed are a side project of some heavy metal musicians. I accidentally discovered their debut album, and am hoping they release a follow up album. Will buy that on spec, seeing as I liked their debut so much.
A while back I did a thread on great tv themes. Still have list with You Tubes if you are interested in that.
Don't worry about post lengths-yes, I'm a bad offender too.
Cheers.
It's late so I only skimmed your post....I did catch the bit about the Twin Towers. No, I would guess that shot has nothing at all to do with the plot. It established the location, and that Sam couldn't be in 2008 any more. Basically it was a tug-at-the heart scene, maybe even a tribute. I'm English, living in the US, and I have friends who grew up in and around New York. For them, the Towers, and their demise, evoke very strong feelings. Just read the comments on this board from early on in the season.
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re viewing options- I said something similar in another thread a while back about having a site anyone could watch the show on. I think there is something called freetv.com (something like that) and one or two others that are that basic idea, but I haven't looked into them much. There was one I might have and I don't think it ran on a Mac. There is something out for Mac computers called Apple TV that is some box you buy and attach to the computer somehow. I haven't looked into it much yet, mainly due to price, but in the future I might, and then just run cables to the tv so that it becomes a moniter. See what television does and where life goes first.
re 3rd ep- There was just something about that kid I didn't like; granted there were several issues I had with that ep so that may have influenced it.
re Shameless- looked up the summary and that looks pretty funny, though I think I'll try to hunt down the British version. The only channel over here that could probably do it justiced would be FX. It sounds like something they would typically take on, but a lot of their series are real hit or miss with me. Just have to wait and see.
re twin towers- I don't think there is any real significance to showing them. I think it was just something they used to be real dramatic and get a reaction. It was a just a scene where they copied from the original again; the US just had the more dramatic thing to show because of how the towers were destroyed.
Interesting thought, though: the UK version showed an improvement to come and the US version chose to show the towers. Granted if you're using NY as your setting it is the most obvious doing a time piece. What I don't know is why they chose to move the show from LA to NY. It seems like there are a lot of US cop shows that are set in the east right now. The west coast setting would have made it a stand out by setting alone.
re computer- it all worked out in the end, and I get a much better picture off the DVD player than I ever would have trying to use the computer.
re Canadian shows- I think they are actually Canadian cartoons that they're importing. There is one I know that is set up like the Survivor reality show where one of the contestants is running around with a shirt that has the maple leaf on it -it's blue but I think it is supposed to tie in with the hockey team - and I saw part of the first ep one time and it was a Canadian setting they were supposedly depicting. I have serious doubts that if it was originally made for the American audience any of that would be there. While I think they might be trying to put better quality on tv, I'm thinking they finally gave up and are just using other peoples' for now.
re Rogue Traders- I was watching clips on Youtube of the Doctor Who eps John Simm was in, and in the related videos on the side a fan vid that used Voodoo Child as the music popped up. I watched it a few times and the song got stuck in my head. Found the album it came off of, listened to clips of the other songs on the album and liked it enough to download it off iTunes or Amazon, don't remember which. I only recently started downloading songs instead of getting CDs with the track, and it is driving me nuts. I'm worried that something is going to happen to the files, and while I burn them to CD, those aren't as good of a quality as the ones from the manufacturer.
As for American radio stations playing foreign music, I think more Aussie music gets through than anything else. I remember Savage Garden was big a few years back, and on the right station you'll still hear them from time to time. There is a station in the town I'm in now that plays a wider world variety (I think mainly because it is a college town) and every now and again they'll say something about an Australian band.
I think I remember hearing something about The Veronicas. Looked up the band on Youtube, and the because of the opening and the strong string background it will probably wind up stuck in my head.
re Soundtracks- See for me when I listen to soundtracks, and especially scores, they generally recreate the mood I was in when the scene was playing, or I can see parts of the movie again. I also used to watch several animes, and would get their soundtracks, usually because I couldn't afford getting the series on DVD. Many of those are almost entirely score music so I started getting more into instrumental stuff.
This past October I was looking for Halloween type music and found a cd that had some of the big "theme" music from some of the classic horror flicks. I don't know if the songs are the originals, as I do my best to stay away from horror flicks or I won't sleep for a week, but what is on there I do enjoy. (I can't remember if I got the disc because it was the originals or if it was because that was the only disc I could find that had the theme stuff to some of the classics.) It has the themes from Halloween (the original, not the remake), Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, X-Files, has something simply entitled "Suite from The Omen" that I really like. There is a track on there entitled "Tubular Bells (from the Excorcist)." It was a cd where the track names were already in iTunes so I didn't bother double checking accuracy, but none of the artist names were imported and I don't have the case with me to check. Did a quick search on iTunes, compared the disc to some of the samples, and the Bells piece doesn't sound like Oldfield's playing. From what I could find of his, it sounded more like a synthesizer whereas the cd sounds more like a combination piano and maybe a lower octave on the synthesizer. There are a couple of other spots that sound like they were changed.
No I don't have Nyman. It usually takes me a couple of movies to really get into a composer. One movie it could be a fluke, by three I can pretty safely assume I like the their work. If it is only one movie I like I usually try to go for the movie score, which can sometimes be interesting in of itself. I'm also cheap when it comes to composer compilations and usually rely on second hand shops, so the selection is limited.
re TSO- They have my vote for number one, don't have a second or third if that matters. They have four albums out now, and have supposedly been working on a fifth for a few years now. Last time I went to a concert they teased the audience with a sample from it, and from that it sounds like it is going to be a great album, but they just seem more interested right now in touring than studio work.
re tv themes- That would be great. That is another thing I keep my eye open for, but trying to find discs made up of originals or decent versions is nearly impossible.
Re Viewing options- think I've heard that some time in the future we'll have cheap access to the internet via tv, so that would be pretty convenient, re watching tv shows. Hopefully it's free to watch. At the moment, at least here in Australia, the government doesn't want to get the networks onside and the networks don't want to fragment their audiences, so not much difference between the main channel and extra channels. And since the networks have clout, the government won't open up the spectrum to new content providers. And one network here brought out TiVo but crippled its capability to skip ads in 30 second increments...you have to fast forward the images.
re PC use-have you found a way to circumvent the lock on regions for dvds? I may have kept a note on a site which can help you do that. Not sure though. Did keep a note, I think, on sites which let you view overseas networks online content-tv shows etc-without them knowing that you are from another country and theoretically should be barred from doing that.
re Shameless-brilliant show. One character, Sheila, seemed like a tweaked out Bree from Desperate Housewives. Brilliant character...sad to see her go. Lots of 'out there' story lines...which I think US network tv would water down if they were to do it themselves.
Re Canadian shows- I know that the US does film over there because of the lower costs. The last Canadian show I know I watched was as a kid...The Beachcombers. Good show. We do get some Canadian shows on a minor network over here.
Re Rogue Traders-what are your favourite tracks? I'll tell you mine if you go first. They are a derivative band...or at least do the common thing of using old stuff in a new way. Don't mind it though.
Re downloading music- I think that even the highest quality download is not as good as cd. The thing is, if you've never heard the music on proper cd, you will probably miss out on the details of the music...in other words, you'll be getting less than the full music experience and you won't even know it. CDs are so cheap here that I buy cds. Good cds available here for around $10...so now I can explore music I otherwise wouldn't have explored because of the premium price for an unknown work.
re Veronicas-since I don't listen to the stations that play them, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head which songs from their first album I liked. In a similar boat is Delta Goodrem, another Aussie. Like some of her songs...really, I think she is as good as any American who dominates the pop charts...not that I listen to that kind of music anyway. It's just sad that Australian music doesn't get the kind of support that US acts in the US get, or even some British acts. Australia is great place for music, as we hear Australian music, which is great, plus we also get the best from the UK and the US, as well as New Zealand. You guys in the UK and US are really missing out, I think.
Re soundtracks-Michael Nyman's work on A Zed And Two Noughts, and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover was excellent in the context of the film. Either the music in my Nyman Best Of wasn't the exact score music, or the music didn't affect me as much as it did in the movies. The Cook score was hypnotic in context and haunting too. Great movie, but it has some adult themes and scenes in it.
I've got an Oldfield compilation...later I saw a similar one, but which goes into more depth and perhaps length. I've got the short version of "Elements" which I like.
Re voting in my polls-no, I need 3 bands. If you really can't name 3 bands which you think are decent, you shouldn't vote...is it really that hard for you? That surprise me-in my US bands poll I had a couple of option for my number 1 pick, and for my 3rd pick there are a couple of good bands that I could have gone for. You mentioned The Chili Peppers. You really don't think that the UK or US has 3 bands which are listworthy and you like? That surprise me.
P.S. I'll send you a PM with a list of tv themes I like-one of them is for The Sweeney. Will include You Tubes, but not sure if they are still active, as I compiled the list a while back. Got around 70 songs. Hope that doesn't bug you! If the links don't work, just copy and paste the titles into You Tubes and maybe a new video will come up for it.
Cheers.
re PC- the DVDs are taken care of, but if you still have the info that let's you see oversea networks online I would really appreciate it.
re Shameless- that's why I think FX would probably be the best fit, or one of the more expensive cable channels. If it is getting remade, though, it probably is cheaper cable, at least I hope. Stuff's going on now that is messing with looking up and following some shows.
re Canadian shows- a show I watched a couple years ago was a Canadia show that I had really hoped would stick around, but the way it was handled sort of made sure it would crash. From what I could gather when people were trying to save it, it sounded like the US was where the main backing was coming from, and the channel they sold it to jerked it around and held rights until it was pretty much impossible to get it going again. Now the company is screwing around with the DVD and don't know if it will ever come out for the US. There is a region 2, but it only has the eps, where the region 1 was supposed to have extras.
re Rouge Traders- the only album I have is Here Come the Drums; from that the only one that I don't really care for is Rescue Me. My top favourites in no real order are Believer, Voodoo Child, Watching You, and recently White Lightning has found its way up there.
re music downloads- Pepsi recently ran a promotion over here in conjunction with Amazon where if you typed in the codes on the caps you could get free downloads - 5 codes per song. While everything wasn't included, I was able to track down some old favorties and ones that are harder to find on disc, and because my mom is a Pepsi person was able to get something like 70 songs out of the deal. Since then I've found out that Amazon has free downloads from time to time that I take advantage of. Most of it I think is off beat stuff or people just starting out. While most of it is rather blah, there has been some stuff that is really pretty good.
Digital music in general, whether downloaded off the net or transfered to an iPod via CD, is never as good as the CD copy; there are time I've heard record copies that beat out their digital counterparts. As someone who likes to listen to music all the time, I find my iPod convenient cause I've got my music library with me, but when I'm at home I find myself using my cds just for the quality difference. Also the speakers I got one Christmas to use with the iPod are pretty bad. The volume control has no real middle ground. It skips from being kind of soft to loud - a real pain when trying to listen to stuff to get to sleep.
CD prices in the state are hit and miss. If you can find them on sale at the right store it can be a pretty good deal. The average price has gone up some recently, so most are about $15 in stores. Sometimes there are some better deals on-line, but have to watch out for shipping. There was a bookstore at the mall that used to have a section with CDs that was a good place to find different stuff, but the last time I was in there they had most of it packed and ready to ship to a warehouse, so I'm guessing they're getting ready to stop the in store sale of CDs in at least some of their stores. Really irritating. The other problem is since I've started finding stuff outside the US I have to watch the exchange rates, especially with the US dollar dropping. That was the only reason I downloaded Here Come the Drums: the only copies I could find for sale in the US were listed as imports, which shoots the price sky high.
There is a resale chain that has sort of spoiled me with CD prices because they have a clearance section where nothing is over $3. I've been able to pick up several in the past few years that I wouldn't have bothered with at full price, but got lucky and found them there. Even their non-clearance stuff is pretty decent price. Just have to watch it cause I could usually drop quite a bit in there sometimes.
re music- right now our pop charts are still being dominated mostly by rap and hip hop, neither of which I can really stand; sometimes I don't mind a hip hop song, but rap rubs me the wrong way, and I get sick of half the song needing to be bleeped to play on the radio. I agree, though, that the US is missing out. Much of the time I think it comes down to the mentality of "US good. Everything else bad." and money.
re soundtracks- some are just like that, with the music tied so much to what is going on that hearing it not in context makes it blah. I'm that way with most of Danny Elfman's stuff. And movie people do cut stuff up and re-paste it so whatever was in the movie may not even exsist as music anywhere else or for whatever reason it is just never released.
Ones for me that usually play well on their own are scores to go with sci-fi or fantasy stuff. I think it is because the music really has to be a driver to get the audience into the action, or a more out there scene could really fall flat. A fast example, not always the best music, but one that comes to mind is Doctor Who. There are some really cheesy things I've seen on the bits of Doctor Who I've caught, and if the music wasn't bang on I'd find myself picking apart the scene or some element of costuming.
re polls- I think I will abstain from voting. Most bands I only know a sampling of their work - Chili Peppers is only about five songs out of several albums worth I'm real familiar with - and I just don't know enough of their work to say 'Yes so in so is great for x reason.'
re Themes- thanks for the list. The links I've tried so far have worked fine. It's also great to see a list that isn't exclusively one country.
Later.
re your PC taken care of...does that mean you can get around that Apple restriction re region code switching. If yes, PM me. I will PM you re watching legal network downloads anonymously, so they don't block you for being in another country.
Re Canada-have you not noticed that a lot of US backed shows are being made there? It's to do with the cost. Lucas made the Star Wars prequels in Australia for the same reason...save money. X Files shot there, as was The 4400, I think. Lots of shows do that.
Re Rogue Traders-the four songs which got radio airplay over here were:
"Voodoo Child", "Watching You", "In Love Again" and "We're Coming Home". The first three are derivative, but I like them. My favourite tracks are "We're coming home" and "In love again". The latter 'borrows' the great chant from the classic Tears For Fears song "Head over heels". I love the delicate guitar intro for that. Radio stations tend to leave that bit out, unfortunately. I also like the Beatle-esque "Change the channel".
re Pepsi- bit of a co-incidence...years ago, Pepsi, in association with search engine "Excite" burned you a cd with around 6 songs for free. Burned two cds. One broke though. Dowloaded some Aussie songs, along with other stuff, like The Dandy Warhols' "Not if you were the last junkie on Earth". The Dandys are from the US. Big in Europe for a while, around the time of Junkie and later. Got a couple of their cds-both good.
Today, I bought a 3 cd box set of new Bob Dylan albums for $20. Glad for it-a store in that chain elsewhere was selling it for aroun $36. Pity I didn't see another box set for Dylan, because it might have worked out cheaper on Dylan albums I like and stuff I'd like to explore by him.
Now is a good time to import stuff from Australia-our dollars were almost equal a few months ago, but now 65c US buys a dollar Australian. Let me know if you are interested in Aussie music! I could give you some pointers.
re music now-I agree with you. I love pop, but the US has done its best to murder this form of music. Not a fan of modern r'n'b or hip hop.
re soundtrack cut and pastes-yeah, Boogie Nights the movie had some great songs on it, but the soundtrack in Australia didn't have a lot of the songs I would want from the album.
re Doctor Who-I love the theme with the middle eigth bit-circa Tom Baker era. Did my You Tube lists have that on it? Should say on the video heading. Found anything you liked from my list so far?
re polls-I do heaps of lists-it's sort of like my own personal library of stuff I like. Think of a topic-say five, and MAYBE I have done a list on it. Try me!
Will send you link now to that site I mentioned earlier.
Cheers.
re tv online- the Australian sites seemed to be sort of working, it's just like it is a real low bandwith it's coming through on; other stuff is still being blocked, even with the shield thing. Thanks for trying, though.
re Rogue Traders- the more I listen to the disc, the more I like the whole thing. It's just a matter of time before the whole thing is up there.
re music- I'm always open to new stuff, so any suggestions on Australian stuff would be great.
re tv theme list- From the stuff I've had a chance to listen to, I like most of it. For some reason, tv themes are something I find interesting. Guess it is just seeing the how they change over time. It's also nice to see the nonUS stuff.
Mars- well the American version has got the ax already. Any idea if they'll run the whole thing over there?
Re Aus tv-so, you tried without the link and got blocked, but some of the sites worked with the link I gave you? Did you try the BBC too? 'One of these days' I'll give it a try...just don't have my own computer at the moment, so not much point. Someone did fill me in re tv.com or a site like that...used it a couple of times...for Heroes, I think, where I missed an episode.
The network showing LOM also played something instead of Dexter last night...which was annoying...maybe that is a bad sign...I like Dexter and don't want to be forced to buy the dvd of the second series. Bloody networks!
I thought that maybe LOM might get stuffed around...a couple of weeks ago it was off, but that turned out to be for an Australian rules football game...two eps back to back last week, and back to normal now. Now that the US show has been axed, that might be an excuse to stuff it around or something.
Did see some post here re axing. Do you think the finale (which I haven't seen...we're up to ep six now, I think) was done to 'spoil' any attempt by pay networks to poach it? I.e. just wondering if its ratings, whilst not good for network tv, might be good for pay tv? What were its ratings anyway, towards the end?
Someone mentioned a break in the show. What break is that? Is that a regular non-ratings period or something? Over here, we don't really have long breaks in the ratings period...maybe a week for Easter or something.
Must say, am thinking that ep 5 might just be a jump the shark moment for me. Jesus Christ! Americans and religion...always bringing God into things...really annoying! That is a BIG break from the original. Thank God the original didn't go don't that route. Don't give me any spoilers though-I'll see for myself if the show does any more proslytising. Can't a good atheist watch tv without being force fed this stuff? When I first got cable years ago (don't have it anymore...what's that Bruce Springsteen line? 57 chanels and nothing on?) Christian tv was part of the basic package...gee...thanks!
re music-not really sure what your tastes are-you like the Chili Peppers, so maybe you might like the funk rock of INXS. From the 80s. If you like instrumentals, I love Midnight Oil's classic "Weddingcake Island". It's on You Tube now...before you only got some fans of the song playing it themselves. Also, surf rockers The Atlantics have a classic in Bombora. That's from the early 60s. You heard of the Shadows? Brit band. Classic in "Apache"...surf rock instrumental. The Midnight Oil song sounds a bit Shadowy.
Not Australian, but I like the Jean Michel Jarre classic album Oxygene. A couple of classic synth tunes on that (Oxygene II and IV).
Also not Australian-but I bought a cd single from The Ting Tings called That's Not My Name. Brit group. Catchy, drum based song.
I would LOVE to see a compilation cd with classic tv tunes...like Eye Level, theme from Rush, and Who Pays The Ferryman. Original scores, I mean. You heard Aussies John Williams? Done some famous guitar instrumentals like Classical Gas and Cantina or whatever it's called. Included Tommy Emmanuel's theme from Countrywide in that list I sent you to.
Cheers.
re tv- tried it both ways and for the Australian sties there wasn't any difference and BBC was completely blocked either way. I'm connecting to the internet through a university server, so maybe that has something to do with it. I'm going home in a week and I can try it there to see if I get any better results.
re Life on Mars US- the finale is set to air here on April 1, which is setting off warning bells, and something just sounds fishy, though I'm probably being paranoid. As for ratings, wiki says that this last ep only had about 4.5 million. Overall the show probably would have done better on a pay network, which are also used to dealing with lower watch numbers so extend things out more than the regular networks. I'm just suspicious of what is really going on because everything in the beginning pointed toward trying to extend the show way past what the story could handle, but now those in charge say it got the ax, haven't ordered any more eps, but they say there is going to be a wrap up. The execs of the compnay have also come out in support of the show earlier on, which is the only thing that kept it going this long. It makes me think that something is going on behind the scenes.
re break- this was just something stupid all parties involved did. Normally a show only breaks when the season is done, however, with Life on Mars they only had seven eps ready to broadcast when broadcasting began. Obviously the eps were broadcast faster than they could be made so after the seventh ep the show went on hiatus for something like two months so that the rest could be finished up. When the show came back it was moved to a new day behind LOST. Many of the people who are upset over losing the show point to this break, the day change, and it following LOST as to why Life on Mars is doing so badly. It was also after this break that the more original stuff started coming out.
re ep 5- haven't seen where the show is going to end up, so can't say 100% one way or the other, but ep 5 appears to be only religious tangent, although racial tensions also play a big part.
re Chirstian tv- we have a couple channels like that that I know of. To a degree I can put up with them because I just remember to skip that praticular channel. It is the channels that run normal stuff most of the time, and then have chunks of time where they put the bible thumpers on condeming the world that bothers me, or the networks that run movies that are not classified as religious types, but the way everything is made right is by just someone believing in God and that everything will turn out right because of it. Just want to smack sense into people when I see that and yell 'Sorry folks! World doesn't run like that.'
re music- thanks for the recs. Things haven't gotten kind of nuts right now, so I'll look into them as soon as I can.
I know what you mean getting a compilation of the originals. The only tv tune classics that seem to make it on to albums over here are cartoon theme songs, but the recordings always sound like they they were recorded by holding a mike up to a tv while the opening was playing.
re Williams- first time I've heard of him. Was able to find his site, but unfortunately it isn't set up so you can listen to clips.
Hi. Sorry about the delay getting back to you. Re that link I gave you to watch overseas shows, try it on this-a funny episode of a satirical game show I like...good episode this one...really vicious at times. Try it with a normal browser, then try it with that link:
http://ten.com.au/video-player.htm?channel=GNW+CUTV&clipId=1427_GNW09-012
That's a locally made sure. Features an American guest who is a singer...bit obscure for me though.
Thought that our networks also ran online episodes of US shows-couldn't see a full ep, but maybe overseas is blocked from viewing 'recap' episodes, like this one for Desperate Housewives:
http://au.tv.yahoo.com/desperate-housewives/video/
Found a link to full episodes of Bold & The Beautiful from the network here:
http://ten.com.au/video-player.htm?channel=Latest+Videos&clipId=1427_bbs5462-fullep-160309
How do those links work, with no special link, and with the link I gave you?
Back to LOM-it seems up and down to me. Didn't like ep 5 so much, but really enjoyed ep 6. I liked the way that they gave the story some depth-it wasn't all just black and white. Also, Annie made me laugh out loud with something that she said. Do like the naturalism of the US series, but, like I said before, if the world that Sam inhabits isn't real, then maybe the Brit version's lack of naturalism was more appropirate.
Watched ep 7 last night. Wondering...did Sam's dad just murder some randoms in the pub? Or were they crime figures too?
What do you think is happening "behind the scenes" of the show any way?
Why is following Lost a bad thing? I still watch Lost. Thought that the network here was running a 'catch up' ep of Dexter the other week, but they're running eps back to back this week again, and the second ep starts around midnight on Sunday. Hate that. They moved it to Monday nights for the start of the 2nd series but have gone back to Sunday nights. Guessing they are trying to quickly finish the series. Haven't seen any sign of Weeds on another network either. Hmmm. Annoying having to buy dvds of shows. Bought the first half of the final series of Battlestar Galactica because the network had it on HD TV, which I can't get.
Re John Williams-he's also known as Mason Williams. Here's a You Tube of Classical Gas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mguzKze1sYo
I think You Tube is good for such videos as opposed to artist sites. Lots of videos being pulled off You Tube now, by corporations. Sometimes I have better luck with better quality videos by using Google Video search.
The other Aussie was Tommy Emmanuel. Here's his theme to the rural affairs show "Countrywide":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bp_5vqE4ho
Would love to have the theme to Aussie show "Rush", which was from the 70s. One of my all time fave instrumentals is by an all time great Aussie band, Midnight Oil. It's called "Weddingcake Island":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtcB8KyrEJk
Reminiscent of The Shadows, right? They're a British band. Apache could be their most famous work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY-rPDwzM9M
Another Aussie surf rock band, The Atlantics, were extant when The Shadows started. Here's a great surf rock instrumental of theirs:
Bombora
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo4DvZmHU9Q
Re Christian tv-the commercials still run religious programmes on Sundays...dunno why. Wouldn't think it would rate too well.
Cheers.
The links still aren't working. They either don't download properly, something pops up saying the content is unavailable in the area, or a clip starts with the same information. I'm on a different connection as well, so I don't think it's going to work.
re ep 7- Unfortunately ABC only has the last three eps up online, and ep 7 was aired, I think, in November. It has been awhile since I've seen it, and can't remember the bar stuff. I just remember being really annoyed with how they handled a lot of points in that ep, and that Sam was dumb enough to hand a loaded gun back to his dad.
I would appreciate it if you let me know what ep they run next. After ep 7 was when the hiatus started, and many people think that ABC showed the eps out of order when they came back. Since the same problem won't occur for the Australian running, I'm just interested to see if they really showed the eps out of order or not.
re behind the scenes- Don't really know, but with the support the show has/had it just seemed odd. At that time I hadn't seen anything yet as to what was going to happen with the final ep, especially since there was no word on ordering any more eps. I finally saw someone post a release they found, that said the ax had come in while they were filming the last ep, so they were able to rework it to have an ending. That was the biggest question I had: how were they going to do a real ending with no more eps filming? That release makes it more plausible that they will actually have an ending.
re LOST- people complain that Lost is too deep, and requires time to think after an ep is finished, so they don't want to put effort into following Life on Mars. Something about having to switch between and keep track of the different mythoi of the shows is to hard.
I'll have to listen to the music later. Someone's watching tv close by and the competing sound is really irritating. As for Youtube, the most annoying thing I've found is when you find a video that is still on the site, it just isn't available in the US because it was posted by some company overseas.
Not sure what the original question was, but the epis were all available on surfthechannel.com. After epi 7, you want to see the one titled 'Dark Side of the Mook'.
Per tv.com, the broadcast order was really mixed up. 1-7 were fine, then we got 11, 8, 12, 13, 10, 9, but the last ones, 14-17, should be okay.
re links not working-well, that would suggest the product doesn't do what it claims to do. Not sure if I'd have any more luck using than you. Do you think the issue could be related to cookies? I mean, if you try and fail without the product, then you use the product and it still doesn't work, do you think it could be due to the website 'knowing' you had tried to access it before? If yes, maybe deleting your cookies before using the product could work.
re LOM episode listing-my tv guide says that the network here will show two eps back to back next week. Only one plot outline is given-about a severed head and a link to Ray's brother. Not sure what that is worth. Can't say whether Australia follows the US' lead-have read recently in my tv guide how networks here will show US shows out of sequence if they new, when they think the pilot is weak and they want to show something that will grab viewers. Can't remember for sure, but I seem to remember people here complaining about eps for other shows being shown out of sequence.
Re Lost-how is that travelling there? As for the lore of the show-the network here has web content which goes into 'clues' the show gives out. Never bothered to look into that. Doesn't bother me. My view is that the writers just make it up as they go along. This season, a new Asian guy asks about something in the past, and one of the regulars mentions the Scot punching numbers into a computer every few hours to save the world. The Asian guy says "You're kidding". To me, that's a signal that we aren't meant to take any of this stuff to seriously...it's a meta comment on the nature of the show. Saw the ep last night where Lock is resurrected. Seems a bit contradictory to me...Bug Eyed Dude told him he was essential for the island, and the next minute he kills him! Yuh. No spoilers thanks.
As for Lost confusing people...and LOM is any clearer? Maybe the two shows are a natural fit? I don't really need to debrief after watching Lost.
re You Tube-I see some vids posted by IDs with corporate type names, but I don't know if the actual companies post them up. Since I often collect music vids, I'm finding a lot of acts I've been collecting songs from recently don't have official videos on there any more. Really annoying. Not sure if it is just the acts I'm exploring, or if You Tube is cracking down. Recently starting using Google Vids for stuff you'd expect You Tube to have.
Cheers.
re LOM eps- well, I think that confirms that they were doing what they could to kill the show, even though the execs claimed it had their backing. I think the only thing they've done right is agree to give it an ending, we'll see how decent it is and how well it closes the series Wednesday night.
re LOST- don't really follow it, but from what I gathered from different posts on this board, I think it has one more season and then it is done. It started when I didn't really have time for television, and the promos sounded like a scripted Survivor. As it continued and I overheard people talking about it, it sounded even less like something I wanted to watch, so I've never paid it much attention. I think viewership is up and down, depending on the season. From what I've gathered, due to how far fetched some of the stuff was drove some people away, but now that they are starting to wind the show down for a closing I think people are coming back.
re LOM vs LOST confusion- I think people may be making excuses because they really don't want to watch LOM, though I will give it to them that it is a bit difficult to come in the middle of the season - thank you ABC for not doing reruns - but at the same time I think it is that they don't want to follow two shows they have to think about. American television audiences are lazy, all you have to do is look at what has dominated airwaves for the past 10 years to see that. Nothing but formulaic crap that doesn't require any actual thinking on the part of the viewer to watch the show. Personally I think the US version could add more stuff to confuse people and be a better show. There were just too many times in eps where they barely touched on whatever is going on with Sam. While part of it was they were hoping for more than one season, I think it loses part of the journey aspect to the show and becomes a cleaned up remake of a 70s cop show.
As for the two being a natural fit, I don't know. I'm not real familiar with the rest of ABC's line up, but I think how the shows mainly went together was that they didn't go with anything else on ABC. From the little I've seen of LOST, it struck me as having more soap components than LOM, but that might be because the LOM writers didn't have the chance; had it stuck around it probably would become more soapy, and that it definately something that no version of LOM should EVER be.
re Youtube- I've read that Youtube has given companies the option of setting up programs to catch content they don't want posted. The program scans everything posted, and if something has been flagged by the company as not wanting it up, it automatically gets removed. Warner Bros. has been one lately that saying they don't want their stuff up, I know. I'm assuming that official companies have put stuff up when I was on an official website, and then get shifted to youtube for the vid. Was on the BBC site for Ashes to Ashes several months back, and they had clips of top moments in the series that when clicked went to Youtube. I just think if something goes on to something like Youtube, everyone should be able to see it. I didn't even know Youtube had country blockers until then, and was really pissed to discover it.
I find it funny that stuff not on Youtube will display under Google Vids since Google owns Youtube. I guess it is just because they pull from all vids on the web.
So, did the Aussie sequence of LOM follow the US one? Watched b2b eps last night on tv, and the head in the box ep seemed to directly follow the previous one. The next ep was where Sam did Gene's daughter. In that, Ray used the phrase "boink"...either that's anachronistic, or shows that this is an alternative world. Seems to revolve around Ares and looking for souls or something...that Russian bankrobber mentioned he worked for Ares, and the prev ep Sam's interviewers had a folder with Ares written on it. Sounds religious to me...souls and whatnot. Be a bummer if it goes down that route. Watched an old movie a while back...The Incredible Shrinking Man...US film, with a stupid ending, not unlike what LOM seems to be doing.
Re Lost-I enjoy the show. Good that they're wrapping it up...otherwise they'd string it out forever...maybe it was a good move to signal the end of the series, as maybe the viewers were getting jack of it. Like I've said before, I don't like interminable series...which is why maybe it's good LOM is winding things up...forcing them to tie everything up.
You mention it being soapy. I used to be a fan of UK cop show The Bill. Stopped watching that many years ago, but it apparently went very soapy. That direction seems to be a trick shows do to revitalise things if the procedural stuff gets too predictable.
re You Tube-I've seen some music vids with the poster being "SonyBMG". Not sure if it really is the company posting it, or someone just letting people know who the real copyright holder is. Generally You Tube has been great...good that it's just not US dominated...found some long lost Aussie classic songs on it, which was a treat.
Back to networks-I was really Jack Ovett when a commercial network here moved Dexter to a later starting time in its old screening day...and back to back. Really killer to watch...last ep finishing after 1 am. Then they'd show The Office (US) after that. They seem to have come to their senses now and are running just one ep, and not so late anymore. Network programmers are just such clowns-the show had an audience, then they moved it to a new day, then moved it to its old day, then screened it later, then screened it later again, with another ep after that. Just so Jack Ovett.
The former #1 network here got strong ratings with foul mouthed English chef Gordon Ramsay's restaurant shows. So they started showing eps back to back, and different shows with the same guy. Eventually they killed the goose that laid the golden egg...people just got sick of the show...overkill.
Cheers.
re sequence- It sounds like the Aussie sequence went in order. The problem was that the dad ep with the cliffhanger was the last ep before the hiatus. The assumption is that ABC didn't want to come back in with the cliffhanger sequal when moving to a new night, though I think the way it was done it could have worked.
I would love to comment on your theories and LOM wrapping up, but as the finale aired last night here, I'm not going to say anything because I don't want to accidentially slip. It's one of those things I want to talk about with a sane person, but too many people are planting themseleves too firmly on either the love or hate side. Doesn't help that some of the old trolls are back that just irritate me to no end since you can't disagree with them without getting attacked.
Just a friendly warning: if you don't want any sort of spoilers, stay away from any posts about 36 hours or newer (as of this post), and avoiding the board might be a good idea, too. Some people are throwing some thread titles out that don't seem to give a damn about ruining stuff for others.
re soapy- With Lost this is just a guess from seeing snatches, but other shows have driven me away when they do this. I watched the first season of Desparate Housewives and really liked it, but when it came back for the second season I thought it lost a lot of the humour, especially the situational stuff. I want to know why writers have such a hard time balancing different aspects of shows. A show can be going one way, and then they try to bring in something new and it gets flipped on its head.
Soaps just annoy me because of just using the same plot devices repeatedly within the same show. My mom is a big fan of some of the ones that have been on over here for many years (All My Children, General Hospital, The Young and the Restless), but I just don't see the appeal. I even tried to watch the one that had some supernatural elements going, but it was just so blah I don't think I ever watched an ep in full.
re Sony- I have a hard time believing that a majore entertainment company would let anyone other than themselves post under their name. The name itself is probably copyrighted, and I could see the legal team going after whoever would try to use it. There is also the variety of stuff seen under company labels like that. Most people stick to only stuff they like, and it is very rare to find someone with that wide of a range. It also would work great for Sony because it's free advertising, which probably had revenue and the execs jumping for joy when they realized the gem, and a fat promotion for whoever brought it to their attention.
The free advertising bit gets to me, though, when the companies complain about their stuff being up there. I'll fav a vid, but the song then gets stuck in my head and I usually wind up buying a copy, if I can find one. Like you said, it's great to find old stuff. Also, with things like tv eps, if it hadn't been for youtube, I never would have found A2A or LOM - either version - so having A2A eps available on Youtube actually led to my getting UKLOM.
re Jack Ovett- never heard that term before. Could you please clarify a little.
re networks- never seen Dexter because of the channel it is/was(?) on over here, though it sounds interesting. Over here, anything on past the 10 pm eastern time slot is just reruns or infomercials. Some cable channels will show reruns of stuff on the free channels (i.e. CSI, Two and Half Men, Fraiser, etc), but a lot of it is informercials. On most cable channels, anything after 10 pm eastern to about 7 am is junk tv. On networks, they typically show three of the nightly talk shows in a row, and I'm not really sure when those get done, but from then until the news starts the next moring it is all junk.
That is one thing about the late night reruns, though, that some channels do: you never know what sort of line up it is going to be. The Office following Dexter? Only middle of the night tv.
With that type of moving schedule I'm amazed it stayed on at all. That would be a guarnteed ax over here.
re Ramsay- cannot stand the guy. When we were still getting BBC America they were starting to phase in his stuff, and hated it. Just more reality crap with a guy that can't say a nice word to anyone. A network over here showed some of it for a bit, don't know if they still are. I've kept an eye on BBCA's website for different reasons, and it seems their weeknights are dominated with his stuff now, too, though it might be starting to change.
re back to back- is something that can kill anything and has to be used carefully. Marathons every once in a while are okay, but a continuous showing of back to back eps gets annoying. The cable channels that show network reruns during normal hours tend to do this, and run through the eps so quickly that it gets really repeatitive because they just keep showing the same thing.
Later.
Thanks for the warning re spoilers. Re sequence, are you saying that the US sequence did not follow the Australian one? On reflection, I thought that you could interpret the show as having missed an episode...I mean that in one episode Sam gets a call telling him to go downstairs. The next episode in Australia makes no mention of what Sam saw, I don't think. In that sense, there seems to be a bit of 'lost' section, but I didn't really notice, as I suppose I am used to shows having certain 'mysteries' to them, where you know something has happened, but you just don't know what!
Hey, in one of those two episodes I mentioned last time, there was something in the tv guide about another Sopranos actor appearing on the show (might have been the ep with the Russian bank robber, or one before that). Wrote down "Nunzio" but not sure what I meant about that. Ring a bell? I mean, want to know who the other Sopranos guy was-who he played in LOM and on Sopranos.
Was thinking a bit more about what is really happening in the show-the whole "Ares" thing got me to thinking it could be a Martian thing-and Ray keeps calling Sam "Spaceman", so maybe Sam is on Mars or something.
Must say, the next episode I saw was awful...the one with the rock singer-sheesh...I complained before about the hippy girl and how she was badly written, well, the rock star was way worse. And the lyrics "You were the last planet I kissed"...man, oh man! It doesn't get so bad again, does it?
Re Lost-am enjoying the show. Don't really view it as a soap, as the nature of the reality they are in is the hook, I think. Re Desperate Housewives...stuck with and don't mind the current series. The series they call bad, is the one I quite liked...can't remember...maybe the 2nd or 3rd series of the show I quite liked, though many say it was the worst.
re soaps-when I was out of work, I got addicted to Days Of Our Lives! If you stop cold turkey, you can get anxious, but you just got to stay strong! Did see comedy shows here where they showed a clip of one of the characters being possessed by the devil...good thing I was over the show by then! They can be addictive though-maybe you haven't found your poison yet? Australia has many internationally successful soaps (not in the US though)...thankfully I never caught the bug.
re Sony on You Tube- well, I supposed that maybe used that ID to indicate that they did not have dibs on the music-I mean, they were crediting Sony as the holders of the copyright. But maybe Sony really does post videos up-I dunno.
Re Jack Ovett...Jack of it.
Re Dexter-good show. First series the dialogue was sometimes dodgy, but it's improved lately. Interesting show, and funny sometimes too.
Re Ramsay-I think the issue here in Australia was that the accountants seemed to be doing the programming...they could see that Ramsay was a ratings winner, so their logic was to show heaps more of it. I liked Kitchen Nightmares. But after a while, you could see the rigourous formula of the show. Too much of a good thing in any case...they flogged Ramsay to death, and the ratings dropped...from top rating, to also ran. That's what happens when the money men run programming.
Re back to back-over here, I think some networks use it to quickly end a series. If the show is good, it's not a chore to watch it. With shows like LOM (either version), it can be a pain to sit through for so long.
Got a really laggy computer today...maybe because I'm playing poker.
Cheers.
re sequence- the US went: the daddy ep that ended with Sam going into the basement, then the Russian bank robber ep (which I if I remember correctly there was no mention of the basement stuff), and then the ep that finished out the storyline from the basement. Because of how it was done though, in the interview format with it all being flashbacks, I really don't think it mattered where that ep went.
IMDB has the eps listed in the order the US showed them, people argue that it is not the correct order, and Australia seems to be showing them in the believed to be correct order. The region 1 DVDs come out in September, so that will be the end of the arguement - not that any of it really matters as there were no major issues with showing the eps the way ABC did.
re Nunzio- he was Gene's rival in the Russian mob ep, and I'm pretty sure he was the other Soprano guy. Don't know what the guy's name is, and IMDB cast listing for the USLOM is terrible. I was never able to really get into the Sopranos, so no idea what he would have played there.
re rock star ep- For cheesyness encompassing an entire ep, this is probably the worst, and it is also the most light hearted. They get back to a more serious tone overall for the last seven with the mandatory bits of wierdness thrown in. I find it interesting how different your reaction is to that ep than what it was on the boards when it aired over here. People were already demanding that the "last planet I kissed song" be released on iTunes, or be on a soundtrack, if one is ever released, right after the credits rolled. I had hopes for that ep to give Chris more of a chance since he is almost a non character in the US version, and was disappointed with how little he was there. I think the main reason I didn't mind that ep was because it was original to the US series, and I just had issues when they rehashed the UK stuff for a number of reasons, so the original eps were just easier to watch for me, no matter how different/wierd/borderline they got.
re soaps- there is a UK show that had two seasons in the late 90s called "The Lakes" that I recently came across, I think edges it into soap territory, that I have found myself liking against my better judgement. Lucky for me it was only 14 eps long so it was short enough to get the whole thing; downside I had to use ebay to get the discs so I'm crossing my fingers everything goes okay. Might be more closely related to the teen angsty drama shows that were popular, at least over here, around that same time, stuff like Dawson's Creek, Felicity (I think - not fully sure when that was on), though it seems to have a more grown up edge. That may just be culture differences, though.
re accountants- I think that is becoming the name of the game with tv. That is the only reason I can see all the reality stuff lasting so long. It's like Supernanny, how many times can one person sit through a show that is all about a woman coming in and telling parents how to raise they're out of control kids?
re back to back- for new shows we don't get back to back eps over here. Every once in a great while there will be a two hour event for a show that is popular, but that's it. Back to back is a thing strictly of cable use to for shows they gotten the rights to rerun. Maybe if the US ever started importing shows on to regular channels they'd do it, but heaven forbid they show the original instead of doing an American remake.
re computer- hate it when computers start lagging. Mine has decided it doesn't like the heat so whenever my one roommate cranks the thermostat up it starts acting up, though I don't think the fan works properly in it. I have a small desk fan that sits next to the computer that I turn on whenever it starts getting hot so that it will work somewhat normally. It's really bad when I'm working on a paper and it starts taking forever to show what I've typed, especially since my E key sticks sometimes and the letter won't show. Wind up with mistakes that don't catch until the end, and everything takes twice as long to get done.
Later.
re ep order-I don't really see how the Russian guy ep was markedly superior to the interview ep...in other words, don't really see the need for the change in order. Can't even remember if the interview ep answers all the questions of what happened in the basement...don't think it does...but details aren't sticking in my head in any case.
re Nunzio-memory really foggy, but if that is the guy who I had in mind...was he the guy who had it in for Tony Soprano? I mean, he was a made man and wanted Tony dead. Hmmm...like I say, foggy...the guy with the big wife? Dunno if that helps. Nunzio might have been my stab in the dark...could have been another guy I don't remember...oh, just saw your comment about not seeing the show...hey, here's a link to the cast of Sopranos...if you remember who played Nunzio, or you know who the Sopranos guy was in LOM, maybe you can point him out for me?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0141842/fullcredits#cast
My God...people wanted to download that godawful song? The Ketchup Song seems like a masterpiece by comparison! Sorry if you are one of those people wanting to download it! You know if it is on i-Tunes? Just find the lyrics of that song way too stupid. At least Hendrix could have psychedelia as an excuse!
Re divergence in shows-the whole character of the show has been altered-which means even the overlapping episodes don't mean the same thing. Just watched the ep last night with that politician from 2009. Definitely a different show.
Re Soaps-Brits love Aussie soaps. They don't sell in the US though. Our soaps are more domestic, beach focused stuff. Maybe the Brits pine for a nice place with good surfing...not too much crime or something. But then again, they do seem to like Shameless too.
Re accountants running show-we had the same issue years ago with reality tv, or cheap game shows. Cheap American crap was bought by a struggling tv network here, and I think Aussie shows, which are more expensive to make, got no support. They continued to struggle. They're on top of the ratings now. Show lots of Aussie drama etc. Might be a case for anti-dumping laws as far as cheap American shows on Australian tv is concerned. US tends to protect some of their industries with anti-dumping laws in any case.
re back to back...yeah, when I had cable, I noticed that. Don't have cable anymore. Only got it because a rival to the big gun was offering a free phone line with cable tv. I wanted the tv because the reception in my area was shytte. Had the basic service...network tv, Christian tv and whatnot. Even when I got the full service for a while, there'd be days when nothing appealed on cable. Ditched it. You got cable?
re computers...better now...but last week, I'd type a few letters, and it literally took seconds for anything to appear. Probably the poker game I downloaded.
Some last thoughts on USLOM- maybe Keitel is miscast? UK Gene was more an archetype, a la Regan from The Sweeney, D.I. Burnside from The Bill etc...a force of nature. US Gene is a different kettle of fish.
Writing very patchy. Annie gets a killer line one ep, then nothing for ages. Same as Ray...starts out as a comedian, then becomes a gorilla. Pity the writing wasn't at their highest standard...have enjoyed their more naturalistic writing re the story.
I'm a huge fan of Buffy. In fact, the lead character was the weakest link. Loved the characters Xan and Willow, and their excellent dialogue...so cute. Not a huge fan of supposed genius of the new Dr Who...what's his name. Writing pretty ordinary. The Dr is supposed to be this really exciting character, but you get nothing good out of him. Maybe I have nostalgia for the Tom Baker era of the show. He was so charismatic and funny, for a kid at least. With the new Dr, you're supposed to take his fabulousness on trust, which I don't. My ideal show would be Tom Baker's Dr Who with Willow and Xan as companions!
That's just a comment on the lack of chemistry on LOM.
Cheers.
re ep order- It wasn't a matter of one ep being better than the other. It would have been between the Russian ep and the interview ep to return after a two month (? - can't remember how long, but sounds right) hiatus and a move to a new night. The hope was that there would be a flood of new viewers on the new night, and so they didn't want to do what was supposedly the second half of a cliffhanger ep. I get that the interview ep solved the basement question, but I really don't think it would have been very challenging to pick up on what was going on. I think another part of it was that there was some more action and a faster tempo to the Russian ep opposed to the plod along of the interview that at times had a very what the heck feeling, if I'm remembering correctly.
re Nunzio- In real life he is Vincent Curatola. He played Johnny 'Sack' Sacramoni in the Sopranos and was Lieutenant Anthony Nunzio, Gene's rival from the other squad, in LOM - the guy at the beginning of the ep that insulted the suicidal guy into jumping.
re Last Planet- Don't remember much of the song, just the first shot of the singer doing 'she was the last planet I kissed,' so it couldn't have been too good. Haven't seen it on iTunes, nor have I seen any mention of a soundtrack being released. While most of the music didn't really strike me, I think it would be a shame if they didn't bring out a soundtrack, but I doubt it. TV show soundtracks don't get much push over here and trying to find one is ridiculously hard. You would think that the people in charge would see the advertising potential behind it and take full advantage.
re divergence- I fully get the differences in the tone of the different versions. I think most of it comes from really liking the UK version and how certain eps had the different emotional consequences for the UK characters whereas USLOM is just kind of there. Doesn't help that I never felt any attachment to the US characters, but it was knowing what it can be and then seeing the rehash that I felt usually belly flopped into a mud pool. After seeing the ending I might be able to go rewatch the rehashes with a less critical eye, but I just don't think I'd have the patience to. I want to see the DVDs when they come out, but I only want to hear the commentaries to try and figure out what the writers/director/producers were thinking with some of it. Hoping I can just rent it from somewhere as there is no way I'm shelling out for it.
re cable- got it at school and at home. At school it is a lifesaver simply for the Weather Channel. The local news isn't the best for weather and since I'm in and out of my room at all differnt times, can't rely on the news for a current forcast. I probably come close to worhipping at the alter of the Weather Channel's 'Local on the 8s' forcast. At home, we have a few more channels, but my parents usually dominate the tv and our tastes don't cross too often, so don't use it much at home. My mother recently has gotten into America's Next Top Model and the people on that show make me want to barf. When we had BBC America I watched it more, but the company dropped it off our subscription package only after a year or two, so that didn't leave much on I wanted to watch anyway.
re USLOM thouhgts- Keitel isn't a miscast; Hunt was just reworked that much and I'll leave Keitel there.
Most of the hard*ss has been worked into Ray's character, even the problem brother bit now that I'm thinking about the interview ep again, but the charm was left out. With the UK!Gene there was a balance between being a jerk, a comedian, and a heart underneath, and I only ever saw US!Ray as a jerk that occasionally does a decent deed because the writers decided he needed to.
For me I rarely could see any chemistry going between any of the actors/characters. There are people who have gushed over how emotionally involved they were with the show and the greatness of this or that, and I don't see it. I think there has to be chemistry between the characters before I can get involved emotionally, and instead it was usually pretty wooden. I will say, however, that Sam and another character were ok in their interactions for how it ended, and I think if it had gone longer it would have become more apparent, but I am glad that it did end with a wrap up when it did. I just don't think the quality level would have improved much or at all and watching would have become a tedious chore.
re Dr Who- are you refering to Tennant as an actor, Russel -I think that's the writer's name, or both? From what I've seen of the show, overall it can be a little bland, but like Tennant, which I'm thinking is more to do with liking the actor than the character or show. Then again I've probably only seen half a dozen eps out of the entire new era that, to my understanding, started with the ninth incarnation. All I know is that I've seen even less of the guy that played Nine and didn't really care for him, and not holding to high of hopes for the Smith guy that will be Eleven.
re Willow and Xan- loved them together, but apart could be a little whiney for my tastes. Love the idea to put them on Who, though. The normal boy, a witch, and an alien could really work.
Later.
re ep order- details don't really stick in my head, but I sort of get the impression that the interview episode only answered some questions on what happened the previous episode. Not sure I know what happened when Sam went down the basement...I know you find out there is a body buried in the garden. Maybe they explained what happened in the basement, but it must have slipped. Back to the ep where Sam's father shot people in the bar...they were innocent bystanders, right? Or were they crims too?
Re Johnny Sacromoni-I Wiki'd the name. Didn't think I remembered him, but it is that guy who had the big wife...the Wiki photo didn't ring any bells for me...he was fatter in LOM, I think.
re tv music to cd-well, here in Australia you just get the Australian Idol type stuff, or actual bands performing live on certain shows, like The Panel. That list of You Tubes I sent you a while back had some great tv themes. One of these days I might try and find them on cd...but usually it's hard to tell if it is the original recording or not...I want the originals. On that great British movie Excalibur, they used Carl Orff's Carmina Burina. I bought a cd of that. Maybe the movie just made the music more stirring...but then again, maybe I should find out exactly which version of music the movie used, and track that down. Did love Michael Nyman's work for the movie "The cook the thief his wife and her lover". Have the soundtrack to that...again, not sure if it is the original version. If it is, maybe the movie just gives the music great impact. My cd is by Michael Nyman though. I've got Jean Michell Jarre's great Oxygene cd. Couple of great tracks on that. The Aussie war movie Gallipoli used the second track from that to great effect.
re diffs- the UKLOM was not something I think I would have enjoyed as much if they had taken the US route and really strung out the series. The UK one was around 10 eps per series, right? The US feels like it is padding things out. Again, it seemed to be working the syndication angle...make around 100 eps, then watch the money pour in once you get it syndicated. Looks like they couldn't make it fly.
Re USLOM-Hmmm, my genealogy isn't the best, but I'm guessing that Ray Carling is possibly a Welsh name. Michael plays him like an Italian American. Odd. *** And maybe ask your mum if Americans EVER used Cockney rhyming slang in the 70s...or anytime. This is with regards to "twirl" > "girl". It grates on me. Sounds so fake...and lame. Not sure how much CRS UK used, but real Cockney RS is better...e.g. "Trouble and strife".
Here in Australia, LOM had an unexpected time slot shift-was due tonight, at around 9.30, but it's now on Fridays at 10.30. I'm still into Lost, and that played last night at 11 pm. Did watch shows like Firefly years ago, but that was in an even worse timeslot-maybe around 1.30 am or something, from memory.
Re Weather-I like to know what the weather is, but on radio, it can be annoying...I want to hear first up what the temp and conditions will be like, but they first go into conditions on the bay etc. Really annoying. You'd probably like that level of detail, right? Another annoyance-a lot of radio stations are networked...Sydney is usually the source. So, when I get back late and want to know the footy score, it's not unusual to get Sydney footy scores for a code we don't follow where we live. Things might get even worse...I hear loads of media are going bust due to the GFC.
Back to LOM- both Rays seemed pretty obnoxious. US Ray started off quite funny, in a buddy buddy kind of way. They don't seem to have sustained that in him though.
re viewing as a tedious chore-mentioned this before-when the network here started showing Dark Angel back to back, that became a TC too. Started watching Ad Men on network tv here. Apparently this is loved by the critics in the US. To me, it's more style over substance. Think I've seen the first two eps, but now have to start wondering if I will see it through.
Re Dr Who-I actually found Tennant a big improvement on Ecclestone. However, I did watch a repeat of one of Ecclestone's eps-with the boy who says "Mummy", and it was better than I gave it credit for. It's just the writing that lets down. The side-kicks love him to bits, but you just don't see what all the fuss is about. He's a bit of a Hooray Henry...all sound and fury, signifying nothing. I was a child when Tom Baker played the Doctor. Remember him making me laugh with his ways. Maybe the script was better then, or maybe Baker could sell his character's quirkiness more. Maybe I said this before, but UK Sam played The Master in the last finale of Who, I think. His first ep, from memory, was great. He was like a Tom Baker School of Character graduate. Then he lost interest as a character in later eps. As a show, Buffy was just so well written. I think that Russell Davies thinks he is making up for deficiencies in the original series, but I think in some cases that ground has also been trod. E.g. Leela, from the Baker years, was a marvellous female character-her own woman, pro-active, and lethal. If Davies thinks he is giving female characters a place that the original series didn't, he mustn't have watched the original series too closely. Davies also seems to be making the characters more of a franchise- just putting his fingerprints over everything in a way in which I don't like.
Would you call US LOM a pointless American remake? Recently I saw a Swedish movie called "Let the right one in". Brilliant foreign language movie. US will remake it. Probably won't watch that. Hold the original in such high esteem. The Spanish movie Open Your Eyes, which I recommended to you, seeing as you liked LOM, was also great. Tom Cruise remade it. To no great purpose.
Cheers.
re basement- the big deal with the basement as near as I can tell was he found a shovel to uncover the bodies/heads (can't remember for sure which it was) in the front yard. Near as I can tell the basement was only used because it provided a creepy place for the main character to go and then end the ep on a cliffhanger.
re bar deaths-It's been forever since I've seen the ep, and I'm not sure if it was ever really clear as to if the people were good or bad, but I'm assuming that they could at least say that the dad was an evil bastard. Some of the small details from the US version have a hard time sticking in my head, especially when the eps were redos of UK eps.
Johhy Sacromoni- Looked at some of the Soprano pics, and I think between the Sopranos and LOM he put on weight and his hair went all white/light gray.
re diffs- the UK was 8 eps per series with each ep about 57 minutes runtime. The US ran 16 eps for 40-42 minutes per ep. There was a ton of padding, though, and they were definately hoping to keep going for awhile. The whole issue that it goes quantity over quality. There are several places in the US version where it just seem to stop, and to do that I think you need characters/actors that can then carry the series and people are into them enough that it will carry. Like I said before I just don't think the chemistry was enough with this group to carry for most of the US audience.
re CRS- asked my grandmother, who as long as I've got the time right was working in a university office at the time, and she doesn't remember anything like that being used, but there is a good chance it was more regional or in the hip/trend settting places. Plus if there was ever any use of it, my mother wasn't in the crowds that would have used it and sure wouldn't have known from anything else. My family comes from the midwest area of the country, St. Louis and Wisconsin, and living in Missouri now, I can tell you there is a lot of trendier stuff that goes on at the coasts that never makes it to the interior or is highly diluted before it gets here.
re weather- for the most part I only like knowing what is going on in the immediate area. When a storm is coming I like the wider view and knowing some more of the details because then I know what to expect, but nothing much wider than about 75-100mi. Past that too much can change before it get to ya. There are times I leave the weather channel on though as background noise because there is nothing better. I've gotten to the point that I can't really stand radio: I've pretty much always hated talk radio and with the today's music I have a hard time stomaching the music channels. Think the last time I listened to it for any length of time was when my school had a game that was only being broadcast on radio and not TV.
re other tv- Dark Angel was something I remembered I wanted to watch when the commercial were on and usually forgot when it was actually playing, or it was playing against something that I was already following. Ad Men (I'm assuming this is a typo for Mad Men) I think I saw an ep on vacation one time and wasn't overly impressed, but there is a lot of stuff critics get into over here and I just don't understand it. LOM's replacement overhere, The Unusuals, has become sort of a chore for me to watch, and I think the only reason I kept tuning in was because it gave me an excuse not to do anything else for a hour. Now that seems to be in semi-jepordy, and the one show that came on that I did like, Better Off Ted, somehow had a season finale after seven eps, even though more eps exist, with the finale getting shifted around because of a Presidential speech and other shows' finales. TV use not to be this aggravating to follow.
re Who-recently saw Planet of the Dead, but only thought it was so-so. Felt like a lot of build up in the story and then everything was solved really fast. Tried to find some of the older Who on Youtube and all that was coming up were some chopped up clips. Did see one the other day, don't know who was the Doctor, though, that I had a hard time not laughing through it due to the effects. I know that during the time they were good and what not, but they're just so cheesy in comparison to what's been in tv and films since I've been old enough to notice it, though even today some of the effects for Doctor Who can be a bit poor. It is a really bad trait to have, but past a certain time period I have a hard time sitting through shows or movies due to filming styles or the acting, etc. Right now the only example coming to mind are the John Wayne films where by today's standards the actors are over acting and everything is exaggerated.
re LOM- I'm guessing the only reason many of the characters kept their UK names was laziness on the part of the US writers, cause I can buy into Carling, Tyler, and Hunt, but Skelton is kind of out there for the US. I"m also conviced the only reason Cartwright became Norris was so that they could call her No Nuts Norris. Ray did go down as the series went on, but overall I think Sam, Annie, and Gene were the only ones that had any depth.
I have a hard time seeing any real point to remaking USLOM. People claim there is a relating issue at work, but I personally think that is crap. It may be relevant to those living in large cities at the time, but if someone was living in the midwest during the 70s, I have a very hard time believing Manchester would be any more foreign than New York, or really any other non-trendy place. While it isn't as bad today, most likely a result of technology, still traveling outside of the region you're familiar with can be like walking into a foreign country. It seems to me that the staunchest supporters of the US version are people who like it just because it was American, with an odd few who liked it more because it was light hearted. Maybe it is because I'm not familiar enough with British culture, and as I've said before I had a real hard time connecting with any of the US people, but the British people just seem more real. Having an American version may have brought some more attention to the British version, but in the end I don't think the remake did anything but put some money into the pockets of a handful of people. And in some cases it may have actually harmed the original because you get the people saying that nothing matters about the original except for the jump in 2x08, disregarding literally everything else about the series and everything that is going on in A2A.
re Let the Right One In- saw a blurb about it several months back on a review show when Twilight first came out over here. The guy was saying that this was a much better film for a vamp movie, but glancing at it and reading some synopsis it comes across creepier than what I really care for. The clips that I did see showed a very well done movie with great acting from such a young cast. It would be a shame if it does get remade, especially by a US company as I imagine gore would be emphasised and the story barely survive. Somehow it seems that vampire almost always equal gore in the US. True Blood, an adaption from a novel series, seems to have gotten aroudn some of that, but even then when there are corresponding violent scenes, they are taken to much greater heights.
The remake that really has me going right now is State of Play. I just have a hard time believing that a six hour tv series can be easily condensed into a two hour flick. Plus from the trailers it seems like they've added some rather pointless, dramatic action sequences to appeal more to the US public. Nor do I much care for Russell Crowe and especially have never seen anything Ben Affleck in that I liked, and really can't see him as the senator. Promised to take my mother and grandmother to see it as a Mother's Day gift and behave, so I figure if I wind up with any big complaints I'll just start chewing on my fist. I'm also afraid that they'll have changed the filming style, which is part of what made the BBC version interesting.
Later.
I'll get to what I think is the crux of the problem with both versions of LOM...the script writing. The show has an intriguing premise...it's high concept. However, they haven't been able to fashion a believable world around the concept (it seems a caricature to me...sort of kitsch). In some cases, that doesn't matter...e.g. The Matrix is high concept but the action makes you forget about everything else. Spanish movie "Open your eyes" is great...high concept, with believable characters (which was lost in the US remake). The best that could be said for UK LOM was that it didn't outstay its welcome. It was short and sharp. However, it ended very badly. Sure, the ending was just basically a replay of Open Your Eyes, but the context around it was changed, meaning that after the initial satisfaction with that ending, you realise how much it sucks...which is why watching Ashes To Ashes seems so pointless...why watch a fictional series about fictional characters...who you realise are fictional characters? I mean, with most drama, the deal is you pretend that the characters are real. Doesn't seem to me that you can do that with A2A. So, why watch? Does A2A make the ending of LOM unsuck?
re you coming from mid-west-is that tornado country? If yes, no wonder you take an interest in the weather! Seeing news of tornadoes in the US means that over recent years I've had dreams where I'm in danger by several tornadoes at once...even though we don't have tornadoes over here, where I live. You do hear of mini-tornadoes over here, but not sure how literally to take that...wouldn't think it is a funnel wind. We do get cyclones up north...like hurricanes...rarer than in the US though, I think.
re talk radio-I hate commercial talk radio, and the local non commercial talk radio is tolerable when guests come on and they do most of the talking. Re today's music-you're in your early 20s aren't you? Surprised to hear a young person with that opinion...it's usually oldies who whinge about modern noise on the radio!
Re Dark Angel-what I remember about that is, in the future, when society as we know it has ended, Americans will be watching Australian rules football on the tv! Not sure what that was all about...making the future seem foreign to an American audience no doubt. Too familiar for me, in any case. It seemed to come up often whenever a tv was on in the show.
re Dr Who-my first was Jon Pertwee. Remember him kindly, but not sure how well he'd fare if I was to revisit him. Very authoritarian type character. Do remember liking his episode arc called, I think, "The monster of Peladon" or something like that. Found the giant eyeball really cute! But really, Tom Baker came to define THE Doctor for me. Just remember him redefining cool for me as a kid. He was charismatic and funny. Maybe they had better writers in those days too. Haven't found much of the new series to be 'classic'. Maybe Ecclestone's ep with the "mummy" boy, and definitely Tennant's "Blink" episode was a classic. Not written by Davies, tellingly.
Was typo re Mad Men. Found last episode ambivalent...decided to watch it because of last week's promo with one guy getting the sack, but there was some uncomfortable viewing re a pervey young boy and his older, female baby sitter. Might stick with it, if the story lines hold up.
Re John Wayne-yeah, he dodges bullets the same way he can run around in a shower without getting wet...just dodges the water/bullets. Silly. Have seen some Humphrey Bogart...he seems such a put on. Probably speaks like that just for the tourists! Re Russell Crowe...he and Guy Pearce (a real Australian) deserved Oscars for LA Confidential. Great movie. Didn't mind Crowe in Aussie movie The Sum Of Us.
re Let The Right One. Original does have horror and gore. On the board there someone posted that the movie had been pulled from video shelves due to paedophilia aspect or something. Ridiculous. Nothing obvious on that in the film. Maybe book it was based on has more. Same theme in Interview With The Vampire in any case. Crazy Americans sabotaging great foreign work in any case. Haven't seen it, but "Babe: Pig in the city" got some criticisms for dark themes. Seemed to sabotage its US opening. Later American films with dark themes got by with no similar criticisms, despite being for kids, supposedly. Seems xenophobic, in any case. Can't recommend Let The Right One in highly enough...just be aware that it does have horror, blood and gore in it though. But, it's the charater's and their relationships which is the most interesting thing about it, I think.
Saw an ep last week of Shameless. That was such a brilliant ep. Peripheral characters get brought in and become the focus, at times, over the years. You view characters one way, then another, then you get a shock like last week and you are reminded of who the characters really are. Great, crazy stories, and great characters/writing.
Not sure if I've seen State of play. Might have seen Edge Of Darkness. I know that Australia made some great mini series concerning police corruption etc. Fact based. Brilliant. Still remember one shocking scene...not sure if it was Blue Murder-a cop, I think, is standing outside a car with a gun pointing at the male driver's crotch. The driver has a choice-blow his own brains out, or have the cop shoot him in the nads. Wow.
Cheers.
re A2A/LOM- With LOM, I think the reason people like it is there is ambiguity to the ending, and all sorts of arguments can be made about what is really going on by using evidence in the actual show. The other thing is that it held appeal to a wide audience, including people that weren't from the time or familar with it. It was also different from most of what has been on, and different sells. I think that many people were just happy that Sam was happy and able to come to enjoy something when he seemed so bloody miserable in the beginning and when he went back to 2006.
For now I'm reserving final judgement on Ashes. The end of the first series began to suggest that Gene & co. are real, but Drake can be very annoying at times. A2A series 1 was also lighter than LOM. Series 2 is halfway done, and supposedly there are two endings shot, depending on if they get renewed, though from the bit I've seen the chances are probably pretty good they'll get the third. The second series has a heavier tone, but at the same time they seem to have brought the coma element back, though there is a mysterious character that is claiming he is from the future too and Alex is the key out. From the previews he has a bigger role in the 5th ep. If everything is taken back to a coma, I will be extremely pissed off, and for me that would make Ashes suck, but I think I'd still like LOM. Also think that a majority of the fan base would be pissed to no end if it was a coma ending - too many promises for a big bang finish.
I'm only speculating, but I think people watch Ashes because they think/hope that there will be a bigger explanation than it is all a coma induced fantasy. I personally came to Ashes through dumb luck. I was looking on Youtube to try and figure out the theme song of a show that had just started over here. The video I found of it was a Gene/Alex fan vid. The "related videos" that showed up in the side bar, different comments, and the like peaked my interest to look into it more. Saw the first couple eps of Ashes, had to search to find the rest and in the process found comments referring to "LOM." At first I thought it was just internet slang I wasn't familar with, but when I started seeing words like sequal and follow up series, I looked into and watched LOM because I though it would be significant to Ashes. (First series not so much, but with the second series would suck if I didn't know the background.) I think I went back and finished Ashes because I like LOM so much: liked the concept, characters, stories, etc. And while the first series wasn't great, it was enough to keep my interest peaked (maybe because I wasn't really watching anything else at the time, and the only reason I was staying with USLOM at that point was so I could glare at it and see how they were changing it.) The last ep of series 1 for Ashes, though, threw out enough questions about what was really going on to make you wonder and want the second series. Granted this was mostly done in the last 15-20 minutes or so, but I have to wonder if they still would have gone through at least series 2 just because people wanted to see more of Glenister's Hunt.
Because the writers know they have to keep people guessing or there is no show, so I don't really know if Ashes is going to change anything or not yet. Probably have another 12 eps or so before really know. If you didn't like the writing for LOM, though, you probably wouldn't care for Ashes. Series 1 was, I guess cheesier is a good word, but there is a LOT of Alex running around saying none of it is real over and over. Series 2 is more like LOM with the writing, though the characters have changed slightly: Gene is not quite as boisterous as he was in LOM (in either series), Ray seems to have become more one-dimensional, and Chris is growing up some.
re midwest- yep, it's tornado country. State I live in doesn't seem to be as bad as some of the others; tornados do better in flatter areas, so Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma seem to get the brunt of it. The multiple tordano threat is pretty real, since if a storm cell has produce one, it is more likely to do more, so you have to watch it until it dies. Used to live on the west coast of Florida, and down there we'd get "dirt devils," that were essentially funnel winds that didn't need a storm to pop up, just the right wind conditions, but they weren't really dangerous, although technically Florida is listed in the same category as the midwest for tornado thread (don't understand that one). Might kick up some dust and dirt, but they'd only last a minute or two, go across a small open space and die. No damage done. Luckily when I was down there we didn't get any hurricanes over on our side of the state. My mom says she remembers being able to hear the winds from Hurricane Andrew (I don't), but we didn't see any destruction from it. Think I prefer hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons to tornados, though, since you can get out of a hurricane's way, and forecasters do a decent job of prediciting where it is going to go. Tornados any thunderstorm has the chance on spawning them and there really is no warning or knowing where it is going to go. Tornado season is just starting to kick off over here; have had a few so far, but nothing that is going to make it to the history books. Yeah spring!
re today's music- yep a person in early 20s that calls the current music noise, but we're still suffering from rap and hip hop domination. Had to drive a short distance today, so didn't put a disc in or iPod on, and between four stations I was able to find music that was decent enough to last to and from my destination. It is getting better! There is hope yet!
re foreign movie attack- Americans are good at that. We are allowed to make stuff that isn't all pretty, but if someone else does it they are horrible, horrible people. Most Americans like to talk big about the importance of learning different cultures, influence of diversity, etc, etc, but only so long as it matches and follows the guidelines they think it should. We're very good at show and bs, and reality starts coming out when people start pointing out all the holes. Usually this is just met with circular arguements, denial, and indignat anger.
re Let the Right One In- is it horror where things are jumping out of randome holes, or is it more psychological with a point to the horror, like Silence of the Lambs (only one I can think of right now). That I can stand. It is movies like the Saw series, the slasher movies big in the 90s (the I Know What You Did Last Summer set, the Jason stuff, the Halloween series), or horror and gore for the sake of horror and gore with random things jumping out and killing everyone (The Hills Have Eyes [might actually be adapted from a game], the Resident Evil stuff). Don't know how popular any of these were oversees, but I don't pay attention to the genre so I don't know too many titles. There is one I really wish I could remember that is only a couple of years old, but the title and actor names are escaping me right now.
My problem with the horror genre is that if it is just random crap going on, my imagination will run with it and I get jumpy and can't sleep easy for at least a week. Then I'll get back to normal, and out of the blue one night my imagination will go nuts again. What gets really irritating is when I'll see a movie and the immediate jumpiness won't be there, but it will onset a couple days later. Happens a lot with ghost stuff, like the movie The Others with Nicole Kidman. Got through it and thought it was a decent movie, was fine originally, and was jumping at shadows a couple days later. Really irritating.
re Shameless- is on the list, but unfortunately the damn dollar keeps dropping. It is still cheaper getting originals than buying stuff that has been redone for region 1 (when it exists) in many cases because you don't have to pay the company that is licensing it for the new region, but with the dollar going down can't be sure how bad it is going to be when the transaction finally goes through.
re State of Play- the original starred John Simm, Bill Nighy, David Morrissey, James McAvoy, and Philip Glenister had a smaller part, but appeard in all six eps.
Unfortunately I seem to have become a fan of Simm's, and really want to see something of his that I absolutely hate to get over it. Have never cared to follow any praticular actor before and it bothers me now that I'm doing it. Don't think can look at something as objectively when you go in just because it has a favourite actor, and can come away from stuff that isn't that great liking it just because you like an actor in it. Thought The Lakes was going to cure me of it, and wound up liking the series, though I wound up liking some of the other charaters and their stories over Simm's. Even if I wind up disliking his character, the bastard seems to do films/shows with story lines that I enjoy overall.
re Australian mini series- hell of a choice for the Blue Murder guy.
Is there an Amazon site that is for Australia, and if so what is the url? I've looked for a link on the US and UK Amazon sites and didn't see one. If not Amazon, could you direct me to a site like it? Like with the UK stuff, getting stuff from the original source would be cheaper than any imports. Plus the recommendations from the site will point in the direction of more stuff like it from that country instead of the American rehashing.
Later.
P.S. I apologize is any of this seems jumpy, weird, hard to follow, or anything else wrong with it. Semester's ending, getting to the closing of finals, and my brain is right at the edge of overload and frying out.
re A2A...you mention Drake...not sure who that is. The maker? Anyway, no spoilers...but I'm not sure that that show will get telecast here anyway...non commercial station ABC showed the original tv series here, but seen nothing of A2A. Maybe it won't get picked up here. Probably won't chase it down in any case.
Not sure who Alex is, re A2A either. Like I said, ending of LOM sucked...hard to see them digging themselves out of the hole they dug for themselves with that one. In any case, maybe the Brits are just trying to milk this for all it's worth...US style...so that there will be more years of this malarkey! Not appealing!
What was the viewing figure for the final ep of US LOM? Didn't you say the first ep there had some 8 million viewers?
re today's music...it's not just hip-hop...I'd lump in R'n'B to the general malaise that is modern music now. Australia hasn't really participated in that oevre of music...though I have liked some Australian hip-hop...The Hilltop Hoods "The nosebleed section" is one of my favourite hip-hop songs. Don't like the form in general, but some of it is pretty good. Can't really name any r'n'b stuff I know or like though.
Apparently Australian radio is not as niche driven as the US, which is good. I live in a major city and there are six major commercial music stations. One is "clasic" pop/rock, one is more rock, but with classic rock and modern pop/rock, and the other station I listen to is sort of a combination of those two, but also with mellower stuff. When nothing I like is playing on those stations (not uncommon), I'll veer towards the more chart orientated stations. That combo station plays twee pop and hard rock like Deep Purple...even played a request for a Black Sabbath song! Odd play list anyway. No one really plays hip-hop here, I don't think...or, not much, or not the stations I listen to.
re movies like Let The Right One In and Babe: Pig In The City...maybe these foreign movies lead with certain themes, which the US hadn't attempted til then, and so they were put off by it...then they just went in the same direction or something. But it does annoy me that an Australian film might have been damaged at the box office because some critics found it too dark for children. Be even more annoying if these critics aren't consistent...praising movies with similar darkness.
Re Let The Right One-I regard it highly. It's not the horror which intrigues me about this movie...it's the scenario and the relationships between the characters. Plenty of food for thought with regard to that. I'm just pointing out that whilst the movie is foreign, it doesn't skimp on the horror...there is blood and gore. I've stayed away from those horror nasties like Saw and Hostel. Have no intention of seeing them. They just seem murder porn. Let The Right One isn't murder porn or anything. Like I said, it's the non-horror stuff in this movie which grabbed me so much. In that sense, it's not the kind of horror that the US makes. This movie did make me think...but not about bad stuff...more about the nature of the relationships between the characters. People have different views on the nature of the central relationship.
Re Shameless and dollar going down...tell me about it! I won some money from a UK competition...if I had won some months earlier, I would have won about 2.5 to 3 to 1 on the Australian dollar. Unfortunately, our dollar is rising, so my winnings were merely double. Last year, I think, our currencies were almost equal...then the Aussie dollar collapsed to around 2/3 the $US. It's now around 3/4. Good for me, I suppose...if I want to play poker on the internet...might wait for our dollar to rise more, I suppose, before I do that.
You mention James McAvoy, I think. Rings a bell...he may have been in the first two or three series of Shameless...the guy who was starred in the movie Wanted, with Angelina Jolie, last year.
Re Amazon site for Australia...not specifically, I don't think. But they probably do sell Australian related stuff. Personally, I buy dvds and cds from a major Australian store called "JB Hi-Fi". They might have started the whole discounting thing with those products here. Australian dvds are region coded, but you can view them on PC from any country, if you play with your pc's settings. I don't shop at JB online, but they do have a site online-it's a bit garish, but since I shop at the physical stores, I feel that I can recomment it to you. Here's their link:
http://www.jbhifi.com.au/
Another site that I've seen advertised is Chaos...not sure, may have used have once. The only site I'm sure I've used is Amazon. But don't tend to buy stuff online when I can most probably get it at JB.
http://chaos.com/
One physical store here is Sanity. I don't tend to use for cds because they put the cds in a plastic sleeve and thus handle it before putting it in a cd case for you. JB just sells you a cd in shrink wrap. Would assume that Sanity would not treat online products in the same way as in a physical store. Here's their link:
http://sanity.com.au/
If you are interested in Australian cds or dvds that may be hard to get from the US, those sites would be your best best. I was looking at some Midnight Oil cds from these sites and I remember two being reasonably priced, but one of the sites being even cheaper.
E.g. will check that now-I bought a 3 cd box set of Oils cds from a JB store, I think. Online, Sanity charges $40 for it. Think JB charged me around $30, but that was many years ago. Online now it sells for $32. Just remember, at the moment, around US 76 cents buys $1 Australian.
re Blue Murder-that was one of a number of fine mini-series made by ABC TV. Don't tend to shop there myself...JB sells their stuff cheaper. But I see that a 3 dvd set of Blue Murder is selling for AU$25. This tv/radio network has physical stores and an online presence to. They're a publically funder organistation.
http://shop.abc.net.au/Default.asp
Have been enjoying some Australian comedies on the ABC recently...which is unusual for me, as our sitcoms tend to suck (we've made some of the greatest sketch comedy shows, though, I think). Sit-coms I've enjoyed include Stupid Stupid Man. I here that is being made in the US now. Enjoyed mockumentaries like "We can be heroes" (I heard that Robert Redford loved this short series) and, by the same guy, "Summer Heights High" (which included a character from WCBH). Some of the classic sketch comedy from the ABC includes The D Generation, and The Micallef Program/Programme/Pogram.
Too much info? Sorry!
Cheers.
re A2A- Alex Drake is the main character of Ashes. From everything I've seen, Ashes is set to run three series, and that is most likely going to be the end of the LOM/A2A series. Read somewhere that Glenister has refused to do another show as Gene Hunt, and in reality he is the driving force for any continuation of the LOM stuff. I know that the writers and some other people wanted to originally get more out of LOM, but Simm stepped out and that is why the new show had to come about.
Like I said, it is still up in the air what is going on, and if it does come back to coma I think people will be a bit irritated, but I don't think it is going to be US style with milking it for years - even if it is because the actors hijack the show and refusing to go on. I can understand the writers being excieted, though, at having a hit show and wanting to keep playing with it. I imagine the writers of the LOM universe kind of felt like the original creator of Dr. Who when LOM took off.
re USLOM- the premier ep had 11 million people, eps 2-8 averaged about 8.5 million, and the last half held between 4 and 6 million. The finale had only 5.86 million viewers.
re radio- I'm back home now, and the radio stations vary some more, and there are some rock orientated stations that aren't bad, but it is only one or two. The problem with where I was is it is so small in comparison that there isn't much variety. Still get fed up with most of it, though, and just put in the iPod.
What is twee pop?
re dollar- I want to go wring some necks over that one. Every time I think it is finally going to start leveling off, it has dropped even worse.
re McAvoy- Knew I recognized that name from somewhere, but never would have placed the two characters to the same person. One of the few people I've seen that I like their earlier work better.
re Australian sites- Thanks for all the information on the sites. Should make finding different stuff easier, and the more info the better.
Later.
Hi. Sorry about the delay...watched the last episode of US LOM last night, which I wanted to do before replying to you. My thoughts on the endings of the two versions are in the link below:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787490/board/thread/139295654
(New thought: you mentioned State Of Play. I saw that the other day. Liked it. What did you think of it? You seen the original? I sort of got the feeling that maybe the US version pulled its punch for the ending. Agree? The original version had Paul Abbott involved. He's the guy behind Shameless, which I didn't know...see, another reason to get the dvd of Shameless!)
Just on that final episode- wondering about Col.Norris' "goofy" boyfriend. Who's that?
And what was the critical/fan reaction to the ending? In my broadsheet's review of the episode, this is what they said, in its entirety:
"It's the last episode. It's ridiculous. And you have been warned". At the start of the series you'd get one critic in that guide saying it's terrific, and another critic saying it's rubbish. That seems to be happening more in their tv guide nowadays.
re what I mean by "twee pop"...I mean sugary. Just looked up the word online and the Webster online says it's like "corny". I suppose acts like The Osmonds could be called twee, or The Carpenters. Recently there's been a song by The Plain White Ts called something like "Hey there Delilah", which I find pretty twee. Bit arbitrary what twee songs I will love and hate. I love ABBA's "Honey honey". Magnificent pure pop song...1000% sugar though.
I'll give the links to the stations that I listen to most-you may be able to stream these stations online-perhaps most of them-lots of Australian music from these stations, which is a huge bonus-I'd miss out on all that if I moved to the UK or US:
Main ones I listen to:
Triple M (modern and classic pop/rock, mainly from the 70s onwards)
http://www.triplem.com.au/melbourne
Gold FM (classic pop/rock, from the 60s to the early 90s, I think. Some 50s)
http://www.1043fm.com.au/
Vega FM (odd combo: twee modern pop to heavy rock from the early 70s, some 60s)
When these three stations have nothing on (not unusual), I'll try the more chart orientated stations, which do sometimes play classic pop/rock)
Fox FM (chart, some classic pop/rock from 70s onwards)
http://www.fox.com.au/
Nova (chart, dance)
http://www.nova100.com.au/site/home.aspx
Mix (more female orientated-adult 'contemporary', 80s, 90s etc.)
http://www.mix1011.com.au/
When those stations are playing clubbing type dance tracks I don't want to listen to, I'll go off the beaten track for more alternative type stuff like:
Syn
http://syn.org.au/
There's a station just to the left of Nova on the dial, but I'm not sure which it is, I'm getting these links from the following site, so you may want to explore yourself, if you are curious-it didn't have Gold FM on the list though:
http://www.geocities.com/radio1600/
Actually, in the meantime I made a note of that station, and it's the following-seems pretty mainstream and not too hard:
http://www.yarravalleyfm.com/
The MAIN alternative stations are:
Triple J (youth, alternative...sort of like Syn, but not as extreme as Syn)
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/
Triple R (alternative)
http://www.rrr.org.au/
Sorry about that if you had no interest in that at all!
Back to your reply!
Do you know why Glenister is bailing on A2A? Could it be because, I'm guessing, the show has no endgame? We've mentioned Lost here before, I think. You said it always had an endgame, from memory. I get the impression that its viewers were declining, which is why the producers announced a year for the final in the series...just so people would stick with it. Season finale coming up this week for me.
re US dollar-well, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one! Might rebuy into some poker sites...want good value. Be glad you don't live in Zimbabwe! I heard that they released a hundred billion dollar note! Would you like one? Just guess what you could buy with it! Answer below:
a loaf of bread
Have heard how during the Great Depression, I think, inflation was so bad in countries like Austria (from memory), some canny unemployed Britains, on welfare benefits who could only afford squalid accomodation on their benefits, went to Austria, where they could stay in the most upmarket hotels and live well, purely because their money was worth so much more than that of the inflation racked country. Drool.
Cheers.
re USLOM ending- My main problem with it was that there was no point to anything with the Mars ending. 2008 wasn't real, 1973 wasn't real, and it wasn't even a production of Sam's own mind - it was all computer driven. And when Sam woke up it seemed like he barely remembered the other crew members, like the lines when Ray says he had an island where he was the only guy with a penis and Sam says maybe the VR images maybe weren't all that different. Then the ridiculous pun of being on a "gene hunt," and Keitel being Sam's dad was just stupid. Then with the shoe shot, which seems to be forgotten or ignored a good portion of the time, it just seemed like they were trying to be mysterious or ambiguous but it was just pointless.
Norris's boyfriend mention was only at the end, and I think just an excuse as to why Sam and Annie weren't together or even close at the end. There was no on-screen role and was pretty much a throw-away.
To me, the whole series just seemed kind of like a joke, and the finale just confirmed it. The ep semed to have been scripted for one storyline, and then the show's wrap up was just tacted on.
re USLOM ending reaction- mixed. Some really liked it, thought it was creative, thought the clues were great, etc. Others really hated it; rushed (which I just contribute to them ending it how they wanted), a joke, wastte of time, etc. There were people who had been loving the show turn on it because of the ending, and some that had been iffy and liked it more because of the ending.
I think that what is kind of telling is how quickly this board slowed. There didn't seem to be much sustained interest.
re State of Play- I have mixed feelings about the movie. I applaud how close they stayed to the BBC original, and it seemed to maintain story integrity. It felt kind of rushed because they were trying to incorporate six hours of material into 2 hours, and some of it was just sort of why bother with mentioning it because it didn't add much, but then some of the characters really got cut. I don't remember the exact ending for the movie (it was mid-May when I saw the movie), just remember I was surprised that they kept the Senator as the bad guy at the end because of time to do the reveal, and out of everything that felt like it should have been drawn out more. My biggest issue was it seemed to be more about Cal in the movie, and he was portrayed as being better than the other characters, and I liked the more balance in the tv show. Overall, I thought it was decent, glad I saw it. Prefer the tv series because they were able to flush it out more because of having more time, some better character development and liked the actors better. David Morrissey is way better than Ben Affleck, and Bill Nighy is a better boss than Helen Mirren.
re Shameless/Abbott- he's done a couple things that I've seen and like, so definately another reason to go for Shameless. Now I just need some stability in the economy. Past couple of days show some hope.
re twee pop- never heard the original version of "Honey Honey," but have the soundtrack to the movie and listen to it about half the time, skip it the other half because of that corniness. Absolutely HATE "Hey there Delilah," and always have, but it is more because I don't like the instrument the arrangement than anything about the lyrics. Didn't help that a couple years ago it seemed whenever I went to take a nap the person next store would turn on their stereo to that song to the point it was coming through the wall and the bass would be pounding.
From the definintion I'm sure I like my share of twee pop songs, lot of 90s pop that was big over here.
re stations- thanks for these. I'll get more use out of them when school starts up again, but it will be a welcome change from AOL radio.
re Glenister/A2A- there is an end game that was promised before A2A even started, but don't know if is an open end ending, depressing, or a "Hollywood" ending. As for Glenister leaving, it just seems to me that actors working outside the US don't like to stick with one role forever, especially an iconic or just well known role. Might just be a having such a limited sample, but that's what it seems to me.
re Lost- to the best of my knowledge there wasn't originally an ending, and no real idea where they were going. When the numbers started going they negotiated to get time to finish it off
re money- always going to have the two side of arguements, the side that is falling and the one raising. Just don't understand why people think the solution is just to throw more money at a problem.
Later.
(Just inserting this new comment in now-someone gave a You Tube for me to check out and I Wikid the band. They got mentioned as being Twee Pop, but the Wiki definition is WAAAAY different to my definition of it! But then again, I wasn't trying to define a genre...sometimes I see Wiki definitions of musical terms that don't seem right...wish people would stop using terms when I define and use a term myself!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twee_pop
Re LOM US ending...do you think that the ending was real? Not sure that you can take it as real, with that stupid shoe/pants scene at the end. I did mention ages ago that maybe the writers would contrive an ending that actually could create the opportunity for a new series on another network. With their stupid ending, do you think that that could be the case? I mean LOM continuing on another network.
Ages ago I also mentioned I thought that the show could have a Martian outcome. I sort of picked it. However, I had a more Dark City scenario in mind, whilst it turned out to be more Total Recall than Dark City...so I was sort of right, but sort of wrong too. As for picking the ending, well, if you take it as real, then I suppose my references to Wall E could count as a visual cue for some kind of inter-planetary expedition. Was amused by the whingeing re the ending and Americans being so literal about it! That gene hunt pun sort of works for me in a way which relates to my next paragraph.
One way to differentiate the series, I suppose, is that maybe you could view the US version in Freudian terms. Freud has more of a hold in the US than anywhere else. So, events in the series can be viewed as being dreamlike and hence psycho-analysable. In which case, I'm not sure where Sam's dad from his 'dream' comes from. Thought he might have been Norris' 'goofy boyfriend' mentioned in the final episode...but even that looks to be part of a dream like reality.
Also important, I think, is The Wizard Of Oz references. Dorothy had a dream in which the people around her featured. This reference is common in US culture. Sort of Freudian too.
re State Of Play-in the original, was the suspect corporation exonnerated of involvement in the murders? Just thought that maybe the US version pulled its punch in that respect-forget the name of that real life US private company which is doing corrupt things in Iraq, but the movie seemed to reassure Americans that no, there is nothing fishy about companies like that. So, for me, the twist was that the Senator was the real bad guy, not the company.
Re Shameless-it's on an ethnic tv network here (they show South Park too!), and it's hard keeping track of when the show returns. Missed the start of the current series...might not be the first time. Will have to view the missed ep on You Tube, I think. Saw a shytte funny ep the other night-a guy volunteers to take the blame for a crime. His mother said "Do you really want that? You'll go to gaol and be passed around like dyssentry in a death camp". The guy looks upwards, thinking for a few seconds. Brilliant. I was thinking he was trying to be noble, then when his mum spoke, I was reminded that he was as queer as, and would probable answer "YES! YES! YES!" to his mum's question! Just like the way they underplayed that scene.
re ABBA movie-God! Why would you buy the soundtrack? I don't see the point. It'd be like there being a movie about The Beatles and other people sang! What's the point? Actually, there was such a movie, "Across the universe" I think it was called.
I own some ABBA compilations, and I think Arrival is one of the all time great albums. I own a version of their self titled album which has some brilliant bonus tracks, like Honey Honey. Great album too...bought my version in Australia, and they don't seem to sell that same version anymore, unfortunately. Really, you should buy the REAL thing! Apparently Brosnan was an awful singer.
re "Didn't help that a couple years ago it seemed whenever I went to take a nap the person next store would turn on their stereo to that song to the point it was coming through the wall and the bass would be pounding"...
Years ago, as a child, I'd often fall asleep with the radio playing. And every night I'd be woken up, reluctantly, by the really drowsy dream bit of "Life at the outpost". Bugged me no end! Those were the days, I think, when some radio stations had a set song list for a while, in the wee small hours.
re Those Aussie stations-be interested if you like some Aussie songs as a result. These things can be cultural...I could say that such and such songs are classics, but they don't have that status for foreigners who don't know them. I like to read reviews of some of my fave Aussie acts as Amazon by Americans, especially. Good to hear them spoken of as greats who are equal or superior to bands like U2, which I agree with. But, without their cultural knowledge of the band, I get annoyed when they fail to mention Oil's classics, or mention non-descripte songs as being really good...they seem clueless to me, but it's all taste, I suppose...subjective and all that.
Lastly, re UK LOM- like I said, the show was building certain expectations in me, and taken literally the ending is a tragedy. In that sense it seemed tacked on. Ideally, A2A should be seen as non-canonical and unofficial. It ended with s2 of LOM. The rest is just flogging a dead horse, in my view. Just wish it had been done differently: Sam going back into his dream, resolving the narrative thread re the train hold up. Then he goes back to today. Be cool if the psychologist he meets in the real present was an old Annie. That would be cool and a bit mind-bending. I like the idea of having some basis in reality, all that stuff with Annie and Gene etc. Don't think that the writers really fully thought through what they were doing...they know not what they do!
Cheers.
re twee difference- sounds like it was sarcastically applied to the music stuff, since Indie, at least the stuff I've heard, is anything but.
re USLOM ending- yeah I think they were hoping to get picked up somewhere else, though it would have been a ridiculous longshot. Only time I remember any show getting picked up on another network is Scrubs, which should have stopped when it was done on NBC. There are probably other shows, but they would have been years ago.
Overall I just see the whole series as a joke, and something about it always struck me that it wasn't being taken overly seriously by the people making it. In some cases it just seemed like it was filler for giving people more time to finish the cop show that came on after LOM was done. I've never put much thought into it if the whole thing was real or something else since it seemed like such a blow off. To me the best stories were the eps that were original to the US series, but at the same time those eps did horrible at keeping a good balance and blend of wierdness with the weekly stories.
The Wizard of Oz stuff mostly came from the original, and there is only one original reference that sticks out in my mind as being different; the line from Gene/Tom to Sam right before everything went spacy: "I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow." But that puts Gene/Tom as the Dorothy character and Sam, obviously, as the brainless scarecrow. So combine that with the shoe and maybe everything was Tom's/Gene's dream.
Probably is a bunch of Freudian stuff running through it, and I'm sure someone familiar with the psych branch could have a fun time with all of it, especially with the Daddy issues, possible sleeping with a sister, the mom turning to Sam for stuff - definately some Oedipal stuff at the very least.
re State of Play- in the original, the MP was the bad guy; could have warned someone about what was going on when the assassin stopped talking to him and instead kept quiet. Blackwater was the company screwing up in Iraq, and watching the movie, it did seem a bit propogandish for Blackwater, though since it has been awhile since they've been in the news over here I don't know how much that cord would have been struck with people.
re Shameless- I might go ebay hunting to see if I can find a deal. Amazon uk has series 1 for about £6. Probably not going to find a much better deal, though.
re Mamma Mia- Agreed on your points. I wasn't the one who bought it - my mom was, but I seem to inherit all cds in this house, especially if they start as my mother's since she doesn't really listen to music - don't ask me why she buys it then; I've got no clue. There are only some tracks I listen to, usually the upbeat ones and none of the ones with Brosnan as he was beyond awful and only there I'm assuming so Americans would know one male name.
re sleeping to radio- use to listen to music, but it was always tapes or discs, the commercials and jockeys always bothered me when trying to fall asleep.
re Aussie stations- I'm sure I'll find some stuff I like, though knowing my tract record it probably be what is played more.
re UKLOM- from seeing interviews done before Ashes went through, it does seem like the writers didn't really know what they wanted with LOM, and sounded like they never expected the second series even. Appearances are that they know better of what they want to do with Ashes, but it it sort of questionable. There were a lot of things from series 1 that just seemed to vanish and new problems took their place without tying up loose ends. Series 2 ended this past Monday, and the end was very much what the F is going on and what the hell is real, which seems to be a theme with their series finales. I'm hoping they tie everything up in Series 3.
So far I like Ashes, and I thought series 2 was better than 1, but what is nice that the show is differnt enough from LOM that if they screw up the ending, LOM should still retain its original appeal. I hope. I hate when the original thing released gets messed up because of something brought out later. For me that happened with the Pirate of the Caribbean movies.
To clarify re ending of US LOM, what I mean is this: if the ending was meant to be real, and Sam really was on Mars, that is the natural end of the story, as the puzzle has been solved. Sure, it could carry on, but it would be a different story.
Not sure that the ending was real though, which is why I think that maybe it was a ploy to have the series picked up by another network...i.e. the mystery still remains as to what is happening with Sam.
re Wizard of Oz-I wasn't reading as much into LOM as you were...just noting that it is a common element of US shows...where someone has a dream featuring the other characters. That's all that I meant by the phrase. US shows do cite the movie though, sort of..if you've seen the movie, you know what the source of a character's comments are. Apparently St.Elsewhere did something like this, and there is controversy over the status of the characters in the show-I never watched, so I don't know about that.
You say that the US series was a joke. If it wasn't for the shoe, I might disagree with you. That seems like a last second joke from the show, which I don't appreciate. But I still think that the US show hashed up the ending even more...so, to ME, the A2A is an even bigger joke...I mean, why would I want to watch a show about characters that a comatose man had dreamed of? REALLY stupid, and why I keep saying that the writers of LOM really didn't think through what they were doing.
You mention Scrubs...just watched the 'finale' the other week. Quite maudlin. US shows tend to be like that, which I don't like. Did hear about it continuiing though, with JD having a smaller role in future. That show has been stuff around by the network here. For ages it wasn't prime time, so I may have missed slabs of the series until they only made it prime time again for the last few shows of the series. Weird programming though.
re State Of Play-so in the original, an MP is behind everything, and not some evil corporation? I sort of got the impression that the US movie was taking aim at a company like Blackwater, but pulled out...a theory ripe for conspiracies!...did Blackwater threaten the movie? Just kidding. Got vague memories of a UK mini series called Edge Of Darkness, I think, something about corporate skullduggery or something. Vague on it though, sorry...you might want to check it out though.
re Shameless for 6 pounds. For one series, that looks excellent value. Have whinged here about neverending US series, but Shameless is ongoing, but that doesn't really bother me. Think we're up to the sixth series now. Loved Sheila in that, but she came in later series, I think. Sorry to see her go, but the show has moved in some great new directions though. Still enjoying, so don't see no need for it to stop. Hopefully they'll know the right time to stop, otherwise it will have to become about the offspring of the original main characters!
Re Pirates of the Caribbean-I got so little out of the original, I couldn't be arsed watching any more, I think. Same goes after seeing Shrek 2...stopped after that.
re Twee pop-could have sworn the link was directly to an article called "Twee pop" but now it seems to come under Indie-so not sure if my initinal comments were mistaken, or if they were right but now the entry has disappeared and incorporated into a broader category. Amusing lyric or comment from a twee American artist: "Eff me, I'm twee!". I'll let you guess what "eff" stands for!
dfle3, the characters are real - REAL!- It gets proven in A2A !
THEY'RE NOT IMAGINARY !
Elvira mistress of the dark is the coolest woman ever.
DCI Gene Hunt (UK) coolest man ever.
re USLOM ending- given the rovers and all the space related stuff mentioned over the life of the series, I think the Mars ending was supposed to be real, and the shoe was the writers/producers/whoever just trying to seem ambiguous or supposed to some lesson, like always question or something. If the series had been picked up they just would of had a point to come in and say Mars was a dream. Joke is on them since people are more interested about what happened in the spacecraft than that last shot.
re A2A- just have to agree to disagree. I'm holding judgement til the show is over. See what the final explanation is and then decide.
re State of Play- in the original the government is the bad guy. Stephen Collins (main MP character) is ultimately responsible for Sonia's death because he kept quiet. There is some other government guy that put Sonia in as a wierd backwards mole to make sure certain stuff was leaked to the oil company. I almost wonder if writer, Paul Abbot, made the US version keep the government as the bad guy. Read somewhere that it took some convincing to get him to agree the a movie.
re Shameless- probably not going to find it any cheaper. Went looking on ebay, and found that series 1 was released in R1 format, and that is almost all I can find on ebay. There were some box sets with between 2 and 6 series in them, and I might just go for that. Easier to do that then try and track down the rest of it one by one.
re Pirates/Shrek continuations- loved the first pirates, probably because it was something different, thought the 2nd was so-so, and was really ticked off with the ending of the 3rd. Have heard rumors that they are going to be doing a 4th, or at least want to do a 4th, but don't know how accurate that is.
As for Shrek, had no desire to see 2 or 3. Like other fairy tales, I think the first one pretty much needs to be the only one. They aren't designed to go on forever. Do one story, get it done, and leave at the "and they lived happily ever after." It's like the sequal's that Disney was doing to the princess movies. It was a very obvious showing that they were just putting them out there because they didn't have anyone that could come up with an idea for a different story.
My intuition is that the script writers don't understand the meaning of the ending of Life On Mars. If they did, they'd realise that Gene and Ray are figments of Sam's imagination. So, I wouldn't think that A2A 'proves' anything...it just gets sillier, I'm guessing. Libra is saying it's still not clear what is going on...for mind, it's just the people behind the characters flogging a dead horse.
In your sig you say Gene Hunt is the coolest man ever. Ever watch the Bill? I was a fan of DCI Burnside. He was as tough as nails...maybe Hunt was modelled on him. Wouldn't call him 'cool' though!
re shoe in ending- you'd think that it either means the script writers were clue-ing you in to the fact that the ending wasn't real, or, I'm guessing, they were at a loss on how to make sense of the scenario so they just gave the show a two fingered salute, perhaps prompted by being axed too. Don't really see how you can be realistic with having those shoes at the end and still try and make some point or other...realism in this context is important...if you did that in real life, I'm assuming you would die!
Just btb, re two fingered salutes...Bush the Elder once came here to Australia. He gave a two fingered salute. He did it 'backwards'...he thought he was giving the peace sign, but here it matters which way you "V" is facing! News broadcasts had fun with it...don't think anyone took offence to it...funny at the time.
re State of play - in the movie, I thought it was like a commentary on the private contractors Dubya had employed in Iraq etc. So having a senator seem the bad guy seemed to be pandering to them. You say that the government was the bad guy in the original...can you clarify that? I mean, in the movie, a senator is the bad guy. A senator is not The Government. So, in the original, did the conspiracy go all the way to Downing St? That's my point about the movie...government gets off scott free, as does the suss private contractor...implies that there really is nothing to worry about with the world. Just thinking on these kinds of themes...got vague memories of enjoying the Redford movie 3 Days Of The Condor. From memory, The Government was behind that. What's that other famous American movie from around that time, to do with bugging etc? The Apartment? Have to put that on my "to do" list!
Re Shameless dvds- I joined some mail dvd rental companies for shows like Battlestar Galactica and Smallville, which disappeared from network tv here. Had big problems with BG dvds from one company...took weeks to get a copy which wasn't glitchy. So now I bought the first half of the last series of BG...last half due out in August. No glitches with new dvd. Not sure I'd want to fork out for Smallville...not a big fave of mine, but sort of interested in it. It's the kind of show you hope gets axed so you can be done with it! Pity that 4400 got axed and the inferior Heroes is still going on. It's now playing at 11pm Thursdays here, I think. Watch it. Just wish it would die soon! Still popular in the US? Smallville? 24 also has an 11 pm timeslot. Maybe Lost will get a similar time for next series. The shows I like tend to have bad timeslots (eventually). Before renting BG, the network showed that at something like 1 am. Sheeesh.
re Pirates/Shrek. I got the appeal of Shrek, but not so with Pirates. Really thin movie that. It's the movies which aren't hyped and you have low expectations for which often grab you. E.g. the cartoon The Incredibles. Great movie. Finding Nemo et al were really hyped and I found them mediocre.
When will you know how A2A ends? Will you let me know how it ends and what you think of it? I'm assuming I won't want to bother with it, so what you say won't count as a spoiler!
Cheers.
P.S. you mentioned earlier something about US Sam's demeanour or humour...part of that, from my point of view was that he was being self-referential about the show...I mean, it's like an in-joke for the show, the kinds of comments he was making, if that makes sense...not sure how many posts back that comment of yours is, so I'm a little bit vague, and I've forgotten the details as the show ended weeks ago here.
re USLOM shoe- anything I've seen has said that the ending done was what was planned, which I would assume would include the shoe. Though the shoe just seemed tacked on to the spaceship mess.
re two fingered salutes- came across that earlier when I was looking this up a while ago. There was a shot of Gene, Ray, and Chris in Ashes giving the salute to a crook and started wondering about a distinction between that and a peace sign. Also curious as to how the two fingers changed into just one. It's much easier to do the two, and I imagine much easier to hide as something else if say you were doing it behind someone's back and they turned around.
re State of Play- in the original, Collins is on an independent committee that dealt something with coming up with restriction on oil companies. There was someone above him, George Fergus, I think he was supposed to be the head of the Energy Select Committee, that made sure Sonia was put in the assistant position, knowing she would leak info to the oil company. Fergus implies that several people higher up know Sonia as a mole, and it had something to do with trying to keep the oil company happy because the different gov people were hoping the oil would help pay for some education and some other stuff the gov takes care of. At one point there is a meeting at Downing St, and the cops investigating Sonia's death and the kid killed in the beginning are told to butt out by superiors.
Collins is the only one in the government with any sort of direct responsibility for Sonia's death, but the gov is definately made out to be corrupt. The original is set up so no one looks all that great.
re Smallville- I think Smallville is done, maybe. It was on a channel I've never really watched or kept up with. I was flipping channels and noticed that there is another show starting up soon following Clarke Kent at the Daily Planet - it sounds like it might be a continuation of Smallville.
re hoping for ax- know how that goes. There was some stuff I was following Saturday nights for awhile during the summer. When school started Saturdays are game days for college football (the american version) and I finally gave up. The games were more interesting and my VCR was being a pain about recording stuff.
re Heroes- haven't heard much about it lately, but I think ran during autumn. I know the numbers were going down and people were getting tired of it. Never paid much attention to it. The slogan 'save the cheerleader save the world' never inspired much faith in the show.
re timeslots- for the networks there are blocks of time for different type stuff Morning belongs to the news shows, there is one that actually runs for four hours straight; the middle of the day belongs to soaps; afternoon it depends on the network- some game shows and a couple talk shows; then a few hours of news in the early evening; a three hour primetime block where the shows with the money getting dumped into them are on, then more news, before finally the midnight to five block comes on of old shows and infomercials. I've been trying to keep up with a show on a high pay cable station, and after three eps they are apparently messing with that for a bit; at least they are rerunning those three eps. I'm just excited because there was one show I was watching on a network, they'd played only 6 eps and took it off. Two weeks ago they brought it back on - I was sure it was going to get the ax, but happy surprise.
re Incredibles/Nemo- Incredibles was good for one or two sit throughs, but after that I found it very dull. Nemo I reget even seeing once. I know it was compared to the Lion King, but I don't see it. The characters just seemed really whinny with Nemo. The one that was much better than I was expecting was Ratatouille. It seemed with that one there was more old Disney than the stuff they had been pushing in the late 90s, early 00's. Up wasn't bad either, not the best, but definately better than Nemo.
While I appreciate all the advances they've made with computer imaging and what they can do with it, I'm still partial to hand drawn animation. There is something missing from the computer animated stuff. Saw a preview for a new Disney princess thing, something like the princess and the frog, that is hand drawn again, and there is just so much more life to it than the others. I think the computer stuff is better when it is used in shorter things. There is an anime, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the American opening for the first series is done all in computer animation, and is beautiful, but there is no way I could have stood watching the series if the whole show was done that way.
re A2A- Last I heard they weren't going to start filming series 3 until autumn and it will run sometime in 2010, so it will be probably close to a year before I know how it ends.
re US Sam- could be. Writers probably counted it among some of hints to the space stuff. Don't remember too much about the show in general. Ended here at the beginning of April and haven't really gone back to look at any of it again.
Later
If you're right about the shoe scene being planned right from day one, then I have to say the US version didn't really have a handle on things. Instead of admitting they had no clue, they seem to have cast people who didn't get the ending as stupid or something.
re two finger salute-which way do Americans do it? I mean palm facing towards you or away from you? Aussies and Brits, I think, do it with palms facing outwards, for the peacesign.
Not sure which way to go? Check out this lost Aussie classic song from the 70s...it may ease your mind!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzDUcPfZoJ4
Re Smallville being done...just transformed, by what you say. Found the humour in that a bit forced...nudge nudge wink wink territory, with most of the humour coming from people saying ironic things. Looks like the new show will got into Lois and Clarke territory. Think that tanked after the two got together, but never watched it anyway.
re "Save the cheerleader save the world". Ironic. Maybe, in order to maintain ratings, they should have just gone "Save the cheerleader-again-save the world-again". Assuming they want to make 100 eps, minimum, for syndication windfall.
Looks like network format from US is copied pretty much around the western world, and maybe more. Australian tv is producing more local shows now. Was a big fan of Thank God You're Here. Heard it got a US makeover. Still running there? Popular? Recently the Aussie version seems to have run its course-they always add new players, but I like my favourites. Bit stale now, maybe.
Re Incredibles etc-I'm not one to view the same movie at the cinema quickly. Generally once is enough now, for me. Did see a Disney animation/live action movie...had Princess in the title. Disney tend to be children orientated, so I didn't get much out of it. Shrek was the best, but it got stale by the sequel.
re modern animation, I posted a review here for the Japanese movie "Howl's moving castle', I think it was called, at least here in Australia. I really liked the traditional animation in that. I'd need to read my notes to be more specific though.
Did see a clip of a Japanese anime which had really cool looking images, but unfortunately I missed the boat on that one...in a festival, maybe.
Cheers.
From interview stuff I've seen, I'm not even sure the actors knew how the show was going to end until filming for that ep started.
re two finger salute- From what I remember seeing, the palm usually faces away from the person making the peace sign. In more recent years, two fingers with palm inward began to be associated with gang signs. The inwards sign made it into rap/hip hop popularity, and as that stuff turned mainstream and the Thing to listen to and emulate, you see more of the inward signs. Was never into that stuff so I don't know what meaning is behind it, if any. Just know that the two finger salute as the Aussies and Brits see it doesn't exist over here.
re both ways- liked the song, video had too many shadow/copy people in it. Had that psycodelic, vertigo thing to it.
re Heroes- checked and it is coming back, again. At this point definately think they're going for syndication.
re Thank God You're Here- had to look it up, but apparantly there was a US remake - from what I found it tanked horribly a couple years ago. Think it got pulled early.
re movies- by sit through I meant at home when it runs on television, not at the theaters. It is very, very rare that I'll see a movie multiple times at the theaters. There is little I want to see in theaters any more as is. Resort to Disney when want something light.
re Howl's- I think the guy that did Howl's had another one, Spirited Away, that was released over here and did pretty good. I don't think the rest of his work caught on though.
Later.
The "two-finger salute" with the palm facing inward isn't a hip-hop thing ... It predates hip-hop, and in fact, predates Life on Mars. It's centuries old, though as far as I know it's used mostly in the UK, and virtually nowhere else.
It's had different (usually vulgar) meanings over the years. I know in the punk era, wannabes would use the gesture along with the word "bollocks" (again, a chiefly British word).
I can't recall its use in Life on Mars, though, so I'm only speaking in general terms.
I know it's much older than that. I'm saying that in the States more recently (past decade or so, probably longer) when I've seen two fingers, palm inward over here it was bigger with the rappers/hip hop/gangs.
It was used once in UK!LOM- Gene did it to a group of kids when he was in the ice cream van- but I think that was it. There was a scene in series 2 of Ashes at the beginning of an ep where Gene, Ray, and Chris give it to a guy they just threw in a truck that was held longer and a couldn't miss type of thing.
A guy responded to you re the two fingered salute recently, and as far as I know, the obscene gesture has been around for yonks...it probably became most visible during the punk era in England...you'd extend your hand out a fair way, pull a face and give the 'salute'! No doubt the gesture is older than that, but it's probably when it became highly visible...so it makes sense that maybe rappers would appropriate that symbol...rappers are on the fringe, like the punks were, and rebelling against stuff.
So why would have Bush sr given the obscene version? We've established, right, that Americans do it palm outwards...seems odd to do it the wrong way when it means nothing to him...maybe he just had a brain fade?
Re Supernaut clip - don't think you really hear it too much anymore over here, unless they are playing chart music from a particular month or whatnot. Guessing that that clip was HIGHLY sophisticated in its day! They were just mucking around with effects, GUESSING that Amy Stewart's "Knock on wood" disco hit was released later, yet used similar effects, meaning that the technology hadn't really advanced much in those couple of years or so. Amy was American. It wasn't until the 80s, I think, that video clips got more sophisticated.
re Thank God show-it's quite successful...big hit here, but less so after it changed networks. It's been done by other countries too, including Britain chanced upon seeing a favourite local appearing on their show. Not too many Australian shows get to be remade overseas, so that's kind of cool.
re viewing movies a lot...not really into that...used to do it, but not anymore. Last time I did it for the cinema, I think, was for Pretty Woman. Really liked it first time around, but sheesh, second time, I just found it really bad. A half life of one view, it seems! What's your record for most views for a film? For me it might be something crappy like The History Of The World Part 1 or whatever it was called, by Mel Brooks. Not a classic, but had the video, and just watched it a lot in a short space of time with other people or what not. Better movies I've watched a lot were generally child hood favourites like Star Wars, Grease, Flying High (or Airplane! as it was called in the US). Around double figures for those, I think...more in the teens for Brooks, I think.
Re Spirited Away-yeah, I think I wanted to see that, but it just wasn't practicable. Saw Howl's on an ethnic network here, which is cool...the city is a bit too far away to go to those art house theatres which show these kinds of movies. It wasn't called Howls in the US though, was it?
Later.
re two fingers- while from what I remember it is typical for it to be palm outwards, people do make it with palm in. Since there isn't any bad meaning to palm in, people don't always pay attention to what way they flash it. Just ridiculous that Bush Sr. didn't know about the difference to his audience.
re clip effects- irritating when professionals don't know when to stop with effects. I've played around with some photo/video editing software, and as much fun as it is to muck around with effects, less can be so much more. There was so much going on that it just seemed like the screen was nothing but a bit of black and then just a bunch of colour swatches.
re viewing movies- in theaters, I think three, maybe four was the most with Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. When it came out, it wasn't like anything that had been released over here in my lifetime, and liked the effects and the adventure aspects. Think part of it was that I originally didn't want to see it because I thought it was a ghost/horror movie, didn't even realize it was Disney until the producing companies rolled at the start of the film, and was happy and surprised to see what it really was.
For at home, it probably would have been some of the animated Disney stuff that came out in the 90s or there was a Doris Day musical that I used to really like the songs in, Calamity Jane. Anymore I don't know what it would be. There are times when I just want background noise I'll put in The Birdcage, had Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, think it came out about 96 over here. There some British series I own on dvd that I like to replay, but they're more the type that I want to just sit and watch. When I'm at home I always feel like there is something else I should be doing instead of sitting and watching a movie.
re Mel Brooks- I enjoy History of the World Part I. Definately not the best of films, or the best he's done, but entertaining thing. People usually prefer Blazing Saddles, which I don't enjoy as much. Just saw The Producers remake for the first time a couple months ago and enojyed it. Thought some of it was overacted for being on film, though.
re Spirited Away- Spitited Away actually made it into regular theaters over here, then they tried to push some of the director's others and it didn't really work. Don't think those types would make it in anyway. Most of the art houses over here show independent films that are usually very artsy that are supposed to have all sorts of symbolic and hidden meanings attached to every single camera angle, shot, etc.
Back on topic though, no, Howl's Moving Castle was called Howl's Moving Castle, I was just too lazy to type it out in full
Well, maybe it was to be expected that Bush Sr didn't understand the subtleties of the V sign! Since the meaning does not seem to change in the US regardless of which way your palm is facing, are you brave enough to give a one fingered salute to some gang-bangers in the Bronx, but with your palm facing away from your chest? Just curious as to what would happen to you! If you try, you can try and think of a good excuse as to what it means, if people take umbrage at your gesture...like, "It means, 'I love you 'bro'"!
re videos - well, I suppose you need to people to experiment with the form to find out what works and what doesn't. It is a bit ridiculous though when they spend as much on a music video as on a Hollywood movie.
Just quickly, ABC TV here ran an ad for Ashes To Ashes, so it is coming soon. Not sure if it will be worth it...it's free though. Seen the dvd for the last half of the final series of Battlestar Galactica in stores now...but I also hear that they are making a prequel to the show. Found the woman who played Starbuck to be a spunk...saw her in Bionic Woman too, but that show seems to have disappeared from tv here...not sure if it was cancelled and why she was in the show...did she bail on BG? Then jump back on board? Not sure.
Surprised you've seen POTC so many times, in theatres. Like I said, one was enough with me. With me, living in a provincial city, we'd have a cinema and drive in which seemed to bring out certain movies every year or so, so you could repeat view them, and this was before the age of VCRs etc. So that's why movies like Grease and Star Wars get ahead on my movie views.
re Doris Day - surprised that she was actually in an Alfred Hitchcock movie...think it's the one where she sings Que Sera or whatever it is called.
When you say: "When I'm at home I always feel like there is something else I should be doing instead of sitting and watching a movie"...do you mean homework?!
You also mention Robin Williams...years ago I watched a movie, then snuck into another theatre and watched Flubber for free...pity I couldn't demand my money back!
re Brit stuff you like to watch - I'd recommend, for comedy, Blackadder (but NOT the first series of that...doesn't matter if you don't watch it from the start), and a comedy like "Yes, Minister", which is quite wordy, so I'm not sure Americans would like that, as they don't really have that tradition in comedy. It evolved into "Yes, Prime Minister" later. It's often a cultural reference point for news analysis when government stuffs up or whatnot. Not sure if the US system is similar enough to be easily understood. The maker of that wrote a movie called The Distinguished Gentleman, which Eddie Murphy starred on. Watched it years ago, but hasn't stuck in my mind, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
re Blazing Saddles...never really found that funny as kid...everyone talked about the fart scene, but to me that always sounded like they were twisting and rubbing inflated balloons...not so funny as lifelike sounds. Got very vague memories of The Producers original movie. Maybe I should see that again sometime.
re art movies...I hear that Australian movies get stocked in the foreing language section of video stores over there! And the original Mad Max movie had a dubbed Mel Gibson etc for the American release. The sequel is one of my favourite movies of all time...it beat Hollywood at its own game. Often referenced in Hollywood movies. You don't need to see the original to enjoy it...which I didn't. My cousin dragged me to see it when I was a child. Loved it...rare for an Australian film to excite me then or now. "Not quite Hollywood" is a good docu on the genre movie in Australia in the 70s etc. I liked that when I saw it in cinemas here. Think it is playing in the US now, but probably limited release...arthouse or whatnot.
re movies with hidden symbolic meanings...I loved director Peter Greenaway's comment that we have lost the language of visual art. Greenaway was a painter himself, and he was talking about the meaning of images in old paintings. In other words, we're missing a lot of what old paintings are saying. I loved his over the top movie "The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover". You need a strong stomach to watch that. Found his Prospero's Books to be utterly pretentious and I switched channels after around 10 minutes or so of its pomposity.
P.S. I tried to get you to vote in the past in some music polls of mine. Different topic...can you say that you have a lot of all time favourite albums...preferably not compilations or non-original albums.
Later.
re Bronx- Hell no I wouldn't go into the Bronx and do that. One finger salute is waaay too ingrained no matter what way it is to claim anything else. Palm direction may not count for anything, but number of fingers does.
re music videos- are they very big over there any more? I know artist are still making them, but the only place I see them any where any more is on the net. The two channels that started as music vid channels over here, MTV and VH1, don't really seem to play them at all; they're too focused on nostalgia shows and really crappy reality tv.
re Ashes- series 1 is odd, didn't care much for it. Series 2 was more along the lines of LOM. They throw in some sexual tension occassionally since the lead is female and Gene's single now. Personally I don't see much chemistry between the two.
re Battlestar Galactica- seen commercials recently about some DVDs, think they're probably for the end. There was something about final battle or something.
re Bionic Woman- was tempted to watch because I recognized the lead from Jekyll, but time was inconvienent and kept forgetting about it. Looked and it seems like not even all the filmed eps aired before it was pulled. Not overly suprised, though. Most sci-fi, fantasy, or supernatural stuff can't really survive on the main channels over here. There have been a couple of series that probably could have survived on a less mainstream channel that got cut early.
There is a channel overhere was called Sci-fi that used to be a good source those type shows since it was so focused and they pretty much knew they'd have the audience. Played Battlestart Galatica, Stargate sereis, had some Doctor Who and Torchwood (though it was usually real late or very early morning), Primeval, etc. Recently though it has been going through some changes that an absolute idiot must have decided on. They changed the name to Syfy and they're adding stuff that would be considered more mainstream, I'm sure at a cost to the typical programming for the channel. The POTC movies have been making appearances, LOST reruns have found their way over, The Mummy, and some other stuff. Way I see it there are precious few places that the classic programming for that channel had overhere. The owners are just shooting themselves in the foot by alienating their audience.
POTC- thinking back, the draw was the large action sequences. With the dvd I found myself fastforwarding through the actual story bits.
Wished we had more drive ins overhere. Went a couple times when I was younger. Dad had a truck and we climbed into the back with blankets to watch. Was more interesting than going to the regular theaters.
re "when home"- during the school year, yes, but as college homework is probably close to 99.9% reading that professors cover in lecture anyway. Had no problem doing actual work to help understand something in K-12, but don't get much out of reading the same info in a textbook. "Something else" now usually just means doing something actually productive with my time or looking into info on for postgrad stuff.
re Robin Williams- Flubber was definatley not one of his better ones. Liked Jumanji and there were a couple other titles that are escaping me now. I know actors get bored with doing similar routines all the time, but really didn't like his dip into creepy drama/horror stuff he was doing for a while. Saw he has a new one coming out soon, think it's called Father's Day or something like that. Waiting for a longer trailer to see if it will be worth it.
re Blackadder- I don't know where they are sequence wise for the show, but saw part of a couple eps recently of a public station that runs some British stuff sometimes. Really enjoyed them and have been looking at getting the DVDs. Can't decide if I like Hugh Laurie as the goofy prince or the sarcastic doctor.
re "Yes Prime Minister"- given the age and that it deals with politics I might have a few problems. Any 80s history that I know are a couple more prominent events during the Cold War. Rarely made it that far in history class and it isn't a time I've ever been overly interested in. Think saw part of Distinguished Gentleman on tv years ago when I was flipping through channels, but I don't usually care for Murphy on his own.
re foreign- even Canadian movies get stocked in the foreign section over here. I think anything not made with the intention of being shown on American broadcast automatically gets shelved in the foreign section. Stuff like Doctor Who, which even though is limited play does air on American stations, gets shelved apart from other stuff. I know that Barnes and Noble has the American stuff broken down by genre, has a separate section just for British shows, and then everything else gets shoved under the "foreign" category.
re "The Cook, the Theif, His Wife, and Her Lover"- that sounds familiar from somewhere. Maybe you mentioned it before or a documentary mentioned it. I'm assuming that by "strong stomach" you're referring to a gore factor?
re albums- easily have a number of favourite albums, most are soundtracks/scores that are mostly original music (or original to the best to my knowledge) though. Scanning through my collection there are only three that stick out as not being soundtracks, though one was a free sampler download so I'm assuming it is a compilation. The other two are the albums from the Rouge Traders, Here Come the Drums and Better in the Dark. Listening to lyrics and what not, I'm assuming that neither is really a typical all time hit thing, but it is differnt from stuff I here over here, and I like music when it all goes together well. Usually wind up learning the lyrics as a side effect of listening to the songs repeatedly.
P.S.- cultural curiosity, on the Better in the Dark album, there is a song 'On Your Way to the Disco.' Does disco refer to any type of club or is it a club with a particular theme or playlist? At least from the lyrics I'm assuming it is a type of club.
Later.
re MTV - you heard the Bowling For Soup song "1985"? It has a funny line about MTV playing music in that year? Music seems much more fragmented now...when I was a kid, Sunday's at 6 p.m. meant Countdown. That was a unifying show...big audience. That show ended years ago. The network now runs Rage on Friday/Saturday nights/morning for over 8 hours or so. Good place for songs you don't usually hear on the commercial stations. There's a huge chasm between what Rage plays and what the commercials play, but there is overlap. A commercial tv network does play Video Hits in the morning on weekends. More a commercial radio type format.
For better or worse I'm now watching Ashes To Ashes. Typically, I have to PVR it, as Dexter has moved to the same time Mondays now. Annoying. Found it quite funny in parts...Chris cracked me up sometimes as did Ray. Maybe they were funnier this series...don't remember to easily the first series with Sam. Oddly, after watching most of the first show, the PVR skipped back a few minutes, which made me wonder: "Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time?". Happened more than once as I tried to view the bit right after it skipped back in time. It sorted itself out afterwards anyway, so I didn't miss anything.
The way Gene was portrayed was a bit annoying...sort of how the new Dr. Who is presented...like you don't know he's a hero so they really have to spell it out for you!
In the show's favour, they went with my anaylsis re Sam killing himself. So, either they have to come up with a miraculous story to account for Sam not really dying, or we are left with Alex really dying and us seeing her delusions. It doesn't suck because there is a reason why Alex knows about Gene et al. Pity the chick from the original isn't there...yuy...I forgot her name! At the end of Sam's time, I was REALLY hoping that the female psych he was seeing was going to be ol' whatsherface!
Bit of nostalgia in the show too...1st ep had an Australian novelty song playing in the bar...Shaddupyourface, by Joe Dolce. Ol' Joe was originally from North America and this song is the biggest selling Australian song of all time, unfortunately! I mean total sales, including international...which surprises me.
I had forgotten how the show would make me jot down phrases I didn't know the meaning this of...this time it's Molto Divertente, Manc Lion and Betty Turpin. You know those at the top of your head?
My main fear with the show was that it would be an unmotivated trip into Sam's delusion, but they do have a bridge between Sam and Alex.
re Battlestar Galactica...bought the final part on dvd the other week. Haven't partaken of it yet.
re Bionic Woman - well, I PVRd Terminator series last night. It's on a new digital channel...hopefully it carried on from the end of the sequence that the network ran when it was on the main channel...otherwise it's annoying. Not sure if I'd miss it if it was cancelled. Not even sure it is still running in the US.
A non commercial network here will run Torchwood, but from scratch, which is annoying...they show Dr Who but a commercial network got Torchwood and screened most of it, and maybe played the 2nd series on a digital channel, which made me rent the dvd. Will have to wait a while for them to get up to the bit I haven't seen.
re drive ins...I think they've made a small resurgence here...niche in the big cities perhaps.
re Jumanji...wasn't there a sequel to that?
re Blackadder- I said stay away from the first series because that's the one where the star does the writing. Didn't get much out of it. It really picks up when Ben Elton does the writing from the second series on. Doesn't really matter where you start...so long as it's not at the start!
re Yes Minister et al...it's satire, not history. It's just funny in how it depicts the balance of power in government and how the public service manipulate ministers.
re Cook Thief-probably mentioned that in here. Just got from the US a 20th anniversary soundtrack to Halloween. Amazon is good for obscure stuff and out of stock stuff. Might get more stuff from them. Might even check out B&N. re the movie...yeah, some of the themes are quite strong...violent, visually graphic scenes...not a lot, but powerful.
re Rogue Traders - I've just got their Drums cd. Lead sing Natalie has a new solo album out now, I think...went to number 1 here.
re definition of disco - sort for discotheque for the club, and 'disco' is the kind of music. Not sure, but maybe clubs which play popular music aren't called discos anymore...they're just plain old clubs.
later.
(Sorry about the delay. I had an out of town wedding to go to and then moved back to school.)
re music vid- we've got a country music station that seems to still run vids, at least I've seen them running quite a few. There are shows on MTV especially that look like they should be countdown shows, and at one time I know they were, but anymore it's just people talking. I don't get it.
re Ashes-Chris and Ray are funnier in Ashes, but I think they have larger parts in Ashes as well. Were as LOM seemed to focus mostly on Sam and Gene, in A2A you get a lot more from the supporting cast.
Yes, series 1 with Gene is very annoying and isn't quite right. Also think he loses some of his rougher edges. Series 2 fixes some of that and a bit more of the old Gene Genie is back, sort of.
Don't want to say too much about Sam and don't want to say too much, but he is mentioned a lot in series 2. From things Simm has said in interviews, however, it does suggest that Sam Tyler will never physically appear in A2A - or he was lying to protect storylines. Have to wait and see. Annie (I'm pretty sure this is who you mean) gets some mention. There's a theory or two about her coming back into the mix some how.
Music for Ashes hasn't been a big of thrill for me as LOM, but in general I'm real picky about what 80s music I like. Is fun to hear some covers/remakes of songs in 80s style, but definately not my favourite versions.
Manc Lion is a name for Gene: manc=manchester; think the lion just comes from personality. At least that's all I've been able to glean from it. Not quite into Ashes as I am LOM, so maybe there is something more I'm missing with that one.
Betty Turpin was some reference to the UK soap Coronation Street, but don't know details having never seen the show. The other one I've got no clue.
It's been close to a year since I've seen the first couple of eps of Ashes series 1, and most of series 1 didn't stick very well - only remember some vague stuff. Series 2 is fresher, but also liked they tie together story better so remember more.
re Terminator- not sure which one you mean. There was a Sarah something on for a bit. Checked their page and it seems like they have "save our show" campaigns going, so that one probably not on any longer.
re Dr Who/Torchwood- Only mildly interested in Dr. Who, and never seen Torchwood. Not much of a Capt. Jack fan from what I've seen of him either. Maybe because I missed his entrance on Dr. Who. Think Dr. Who has more to play with, though, since he's got the Tardis where as Torchwood seems stuck on Earth. Sounds like it would get old faster.
Tried to watch Primeval, which I guess is the ITV station's answer to Dr. Who. Something about fighting annomilies on Earth, which I guess is kind of like Torchwood. Felt overly drawn out and kept looking at the clock for it to be over.
re Jumanji- no clue. Seems like everything is getting a sequal now whether it was originally intended or not. If there was one made closer to the original, I think it's one no one remembers - sort of like the later Beethoven movies.
re Minister- have to see if I can find it
re amazon/bn.com- amazon is usually the better source online I've found. Much wider varitey and more willing to direct to other places that might have it if they don't or to places that might have it cheaper. Some of the market place stuff can be fantastic deals as long as you watch the rating and reviews of who you're buying from.
re Rogue Traders- personally I like Better in the Dark more than Drums as an overall album. Think the tempo is faster for Dark. With Natalie doing the solo album, does that mean Rogue Traders isn't together anymore?
Later
Delays are ok. How's married life working out for you? Just kidding!
Re MTV...great marketing opportunity here...a channel devoted to music...we could call it "The Music Channel"! Years ago there was an Australian sketch comedy show which satirised the Australian version of that show. Their parody was called "Empty V". In those days we didn't have cable, I don't think, so a network here repackaged the show into an hour long or more show, with Aussie hosts. On the free to air networks here we have Video Hits on weekend mornings. Don't watch that. Think that that is chart orientated. I will watch Rage here though, on non-commercial tv...overnights Fridays and Saturdays. Completely different playlist to commercial radio overhere...you can hear more hardcore stuff, and not that stupid, censored for American audiences shytte. That bugs me...radio stations over here playing songs which I'm guessing that have been pre-censored in the US.
re Gene in series 1 of A2A...is your gripe the same as mine? Mine is that it's like the show thinks that the viewers are too stupid to realise that Gene is a hero, so they really have to pile it on thick...which I don't like...they do that in Dr Who now...the guy behind that isn't the genius he's made out to be, I don't think.
I've a got a theory on A2A...speculating that maybe Gene is central to everything...maybe he is an intentional or unintentional villain in all of this. Like Sam and Alex's predicament is somehow his doing...or maybe he is doing them a favour...assuming that neither series is about the dying thoughts of its two central characters, of course. You're right about Annie...she was the one whose name escaped me.
You say you like 80s music. What kind? Recently ordered from Amazon Aussie band's Mondo Rock's "Chemistry". Not available in Australia anymore...you only have the compilations now. Looks like the US is still making it though. Some of their all time great singles are on that studio album. They're pop/rock. If you like synth pop/rock, I recommend Aussie group The Flowers' debut "Icehouse". Personally, I think that that is the greatest debut album ever...of course, I haven't listened to a hell of a lot of debut albums, but it's a great album nonetheless.
re Terminator...yeah, I meant the Sarah Connor Chronicles. It's started playing on a digital station here. Couldn't really bare to sit through the first episode again...not that good...I might try and retune in for the episode where the network stopped showing it...or watching any eps that I've missed.
re Torchwood v Dr Who...another show where they pile it on thick re the central character being a hero. Can't say I've forgiven Russel T Davies meddling in the show...spinoff after spinoff, just putting his paw prints on the show. Really, I think the golden years of the show were the Tom Baker years, up until a year or so before he finished. To me, Tom Baker redefined "cool"...he was cool...did cool things, said cool things...and you didn't get all that stupid framing which signified that he was cool, if you get me. Torchwood is now on digital tv. Unfortunately, I will have to wait for the new network to catch up where the old network left off and from where I saw the 2nd series on rental dvd. Not sure how long that wait is though...hear that the new series is only 5 eps long, from memory.
re Jumanji sequel...pretty sure it was in the cinemas a year or 2 or 3 ago. Maybe a direct sequel, or maybe just set in the same world. Might have to Wiki that for the answers, if you are interested.
re Rogue Traders - I think that they're still going. Did hear something on the radio about lead singer auditioning for a US show..not sure if that was a joke or not. If it's for real, that may make things hard for the band. Is Better In The Dark pre Natalie B? Did they sample a lot of music in that from other sources?
P.S. the other day I read something in my local tv guide about A2A and LOM - one of the script writers is interviewed, and he discusses the American show as well. Let me know if the link doesn't work.
Later.
http://tinyurl.com/my2y8h
re Gene- yeah, they go over the top with him in series 1, from what I remember. Like I said, series 2 pulls back and you get a much better and rounded Gene. He's a person again and not a characiture. Think one of my favourite scenes from series 2: some low level scum in the trunk of the Quattro. Gene pulls over a truck from France. Chris goes and distracts the driver, Gene and Ray get the scum out of the Quattro and throw him in the back of the truck. As the truck drives off, Gene, Ray, and Chris flip the truck with the scum the two-fingered salute. Nothing fantastic happens in the scene, but it just seemed right for the guys.
Series 2 is darker, and gets more into what might be happening. There were times series 1 connecting story line was just there to show the few differences from Sam's.
It's a pretty common theory that Gene is central to everything. With all the theories pushing that, I think it would be more interesting if, assuming he isn't just a figment of dying brains, that Gene is just as clueless as Sam or Alex. My current guess, though, has him as being involved somehow with that small timeslot when a person could go either live or die.
re 80s music-the little that I like is some of what has been termed 'classic' 80s pop over here. There is some Michael Jackson, little Madonna - though I think most of what I like from here came in the 90s- little bit of Queen, 'Safety Dance' by Men in Hats I enjoy from time to time. Don't know what the song is called, but I've always called it 'Land Down Under' cause it was the first part of the chorus. Some of Springfield and Sting ('In the Air Tonight'), Duran Duran. There have been several times where I thought something was from the late 80s, and it turned out to be from the early 90s. It's kind of random, but most of it is 80s pop that radio stations play every now and again, though some of the rock I like might be from the 80s and I'm just not aware of it.
Have the Ashes series 1 OST because it was cheaper to buy it with the LOM OST than to buy LOM by itself (and figured I'd give a shot, nothing to lose really). From there, 'Geno' by Dexy's Midnight Runners, 'No More Heroes' by the Stranglers, '(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing' by Heaven 17, 'Happy Birthday' by Altered Images, 'Money' by The Flying Lizards, 'Let's Stick Together' by Tenpole Tudor, and 'Vienna' by Ultravox.
re Rogue Traders- Better in the Dark is with Natalie, came out sometime in 2008. As for sampling, not really sure. The overall sound is very similar to Drums, guitar might be a little heavier than Drums, but still very much dance/electropop - no big drastic changes.
re article- At least in the writers' favour the fans are finding middle ground and aren' at each others throats any more. Series 2 seems to have smoothed things over mostly. Still have some people that won't sit through enough of Ashes, though, to calm down; bit sad really. At this point they could probably skip series 1 altogether. Don't know if much came from it other than characterization and a good way to put Ashes and LOM side-by-side.
Got to love how one of the big reasons for the return to the 73 after Sam's jump was the kiss with Annie, and here the writer is calling it a love story between two men. Sounds like he's been hanging around too many LOM fan boards.
I find it very funny how when a show is coming out or on air, especially remakes or adaptations from books, everyone dealing with the original work (original show, book, whatever) is always supportive of the remake and says yeah it's great. When the remake/adaptation ends, the real story comes out. I do think Pharoah got it right, that they changed the DNA of the show, and that Keitel caught on to that but apparently didn't really use any influence to fix it. Makes me wonder if Keitel put his all into it since he seemed to know.
Been keeping up with the new HBO show over here, True Blood, adapted from a book series by Charlaine Harris, and I haven't figured out yet if I find the book fans irritations at all the changes entertaining, funny, or sad. As a fan of the books, I can understand where most of them are coming from, but at the same time after watching the first couple eps can't really be surprised. Plus, from what I've gathered the guy adapting it has been with HBO for a bit and had hit shows on there. Get the feeling he could do what he wants and no one will care as long as the profits are right. With someone like that, you're going to get a bunch of divergence - wants to make it his own too much.
There is another adaptation coming out overhere that I imagine will be even more of an uproar from book fans than True Blood called the Vampire Diaries, taking the name from the books series title. The books came out in the 90s and was for teens, but the book fans did like them for what they were and the characters. From previews, the tv adaptation is going to look more like a version of Twilight for tv. Moronic that it can't stand on its own, but I'm assuming it is an attempt to cater to the masse opinion and up viewership. I'll watch an ep or two, but I'm pretty much positive it will be utter crap.
Later.
Before I forget, I'll just mention a couple of things I meant to say earlier...
Ashes to ashes is good, as you get to find out whatever happened to Edina Monsoon!
re Gene being central to the series...well, like I said before, there is motivation for Alex seeing these guys...she had Sam's notes from LOM, so even if they are a figment of her imagination, there's a reason why she's seeing them. That was my main gripe re wondering whether I should see A2A...it just didn't seem plausible that someone else could see figments of Sam's imagination. Problem solved.
The other issue which remains is this: if it is all in Alex' head, then that sucks. It's just basically a repeat of Sam's case, but this time with the nature of his experience put at the forefront, for those who might not have guessed what was going on first time around. I did guess what was going on, so if it turns out it is all in her head, I am basically watching something I had no desire to watch before...the figments of a character's imagination. However, maybe they have come to a superior presentation this time around...Alex has anchors in the 'real' world, which we are reminded of frequently. That never really happened with Sam. His 'dream' world seemed the most real, which is why it bugged me when he didn't finish off his adventure in the tunnel.
re Land Down Under...that's Aussie group Men At Work's classic "Down under". They were big for a while in the US, as they had a different sound going from anyone else. First hit was "Who can it be now?". I liked some of their songs. Lead singer on Scrubs sometimes. Group being sued for the flute solo in Down Under...apparently based on a childrens' song I learned in primary school, which goes something like "Laugh Kookaburra laugh". Not sure the name of that song. Try You Tubing it...ideally you'd want to hear lots of Aussie school children singing it.
Haven't heard of A2A OST. Some of those acts ring a bell...Geno is probably the 'other' hit which people forget by that band. They're known for "Come on Eileen". Love The Strangler's "Golden brown", and they have a couple of other good songs I know of...not the one you mention. May have to get a good hits cd by them. Heaven 17...only know of their classic "Temptation".
re Keitel...I just found him a bit miscast. The UK has the tradition of Hunt in LOM, Regan, I think, in The Sweeney, and Burnside in The Bill, whereas in the US they seem to have their caricature equivalents...the yelling, head exploding superior. Did see a bit of a show at late night here where they were playing that kind of character straight, where they were already a bit of a joke...in that Arnie movie he was described as "comic relief". Wondering about the name of the movie...The Last Action Hero? Not sure, I liked that movie anyway.
re Adaptations...in my review on this site of Watchment I gave it 10/10. Based on a comic Time put in the 100 greatest books or whatnot of all time or last century or something. I didn't have any of that kind of baggage with me...I just enjoyed the movie on its own terms. Watching Dexter now...also based on a book. The author initially hated the idea of who would play lead...the guy played a gay on 6 Feet Under. Never saw that show, or read the books. So, now into the show on its own terms. First season a bit patchy, but picking up.
re True Blood or whatnot (the one with that Kiwi girl from The Piano and X-Men?)...may have heard about that. Not sure if it's on free to air or digital tv here. Have seen ads for a network's digital station...a British series on a share house peopled with vampires and werewolves etc. Haven't checked that out.
Oh yeah...seen ads here for a new US series...Flash Forward or something. It's going to be an 'event' type tv series. Not sure, it might be a Jericho type show. I found Jericho really, really, really boring to watch. If you get into the habit of watching tosh like that, you kind of hope it gets axed!
re Edina Monsoon- I'm guessing this is Alex? Think I've heard of Absolutely Fabulous, but I'm not familiar with it. From what I read could definatley be Alex.
re Sam in tunnel- after Sam jumped, he went right back to the tunnel, shot the bad guy and saved the rest of the team. Then you've got the kiss and the drive off in the Cortina. Or am I misunderstanding something?
How far are you in Ashes? I never want to write too much because I'm always worried that I'm going to spoil something.
re Men At Work- "who can it be now?" not bad but prefer "Down Under," probably because the sound is more different than the other one. Can't believe they're getting sued over something that is only about 10 notes. We learned "Laugh Kookaburra Laugh" at school when I was about 5, I think, so first year or so of school. Looked up the music just to see, and I really don't see how there is a case. Unless there is more than what I was able to find, there is more to the Men At Work flute solo, and the questionable part doesn't match up 100%. While it would be fun to hear it again, just a fun, happy song, sadly didn't find it on youtube, but they're about to start maitenance, which always screws things up. Maybe later.
re Come on Eileen- series 2 of Ashes, can't remember what ep right now, uses the song in such a corny, pathetic way it makes you want to cry. Most of the time similar stuff doesn't bother me because wasn't around for the 90% of the 80s, and the bit I was around for I don't remember, but that one even made me cringe. Made me want to smack the person who made that decision upside the head and demand the they were doing. Just kind of ruined the scene.
re Keitel- For what their ultimate goal was, I think he could have worked, but the way the writers and whoever else dealt with the script, it just did not come across that way. Probably because they were hoping to have season after season to play with, but as it was, the dad thing made no sense to have in there and the character rewrite fell flat.
re Adaptations- comics and manga I think are a bit different than changing format from a regular novel or from another tv show. There have been several anime series that I watched and later read the manga, and they are usually done pretty well. But with comic/manga stuff I think part of it is the people that are usually real into it, the main audience I think they all go for, has a certain pickiness and critical eye that the adapters are willing to work with. With regular novels, I think that the tv/movie people don't care as much about the reading audience and will usually go with something flashy over something that might be great in the books and could transfer great to the screen if the adapter would just take a little bit of time.
For example, there is a character Eric in True Blood that in the books turns into this multi-dimensioned character that the readers really appreciate. The guy that is doing the tv adaption, supposedly read all the books that are out, has said he only sees Eric as a one dimension villin. Like someone else said, I don't know what books he was reading, but it wasn't the same ones I was.
The ones that really gripe me though, are the ones that claim they are adaptations, use the same name as the book and the same character names, but change everything else. If you're going to change everything but the most basic, basic, BASIC elements of plot, so basic that no one could ever claim plagerism over it, just call it something different and pull some names out of a hat. Especially when the adaptation is such absolutely horrible and then it casts a lasting shadow over the original.
re True Blood- yes, the one with Kiwi Anna Paquin. For an American made show, it has a very diverse main cast. Female lead-New Zealand, Male Lead-England, main character's brother-Austraila, Male semi-maybe antagonist- Sweden, another guy from Denmark. It is really strange when you hear interviews, especially before you know how diverse of a group it is, because in the show they're all trying to do Southern US accents.
re Brit series- pretty sure it's "Being Human." It's on my to watch list when I get a chance, but I'm not sure how long it is. Think I heard there is one six ep series done, and they've signed to do another, but that may just be internet gossip.
re Flash Forward- know they were advertising real heavy over here for awhile, but not sure any more. From the previews I saw I though it was just going to be a regular television show so wasn't real interested. Didn't much care for in the previews that were saying the characters saw glimpses of what they think is the future and then everyone agonizes over it. The mystery of why the world simultaneously went to sleep for two (?) minutes sounded interesting, but the dream element blah.
Later.
(edit in: since we've mentioned Britcoms etc in the past, I thought I'd add an article I recently read by a well known New Zealand comic here in Australia, Tony Martin. He's a bit of a comedy geek. I the article below he discusses a lot of Britcoms that never made it to Australia. Looks a good source to follow up stuff that interests you. Have seen and loved some of the shows he mentions, like Father Ted and The Fast Show etc. What I saw of Alan Partridge was good though. Pity it got treated so shabbily here. MIght want to chase up some stuff he mentions myself! Got some You Tubes of Oz comedy you may like, if you are interested.)
http://tinyurl.com/myh9ux
re Edina Monsoon, yeah, Alex. Look a bit similar. Sort of funny, in a similar way too. Maybe "Bolly knickers" is a referencing of Ab Fab?
re Sam in tunnel - been a while...I hated that he got back into the 'real' world before that situation was resolved. From memory, you never saw him save them back in la la land, right? Maybe A2A is addressing that 'flaw'? I.e. in LOM, you wanted Sam in that world, but with A2A you are definitely rooting for her to get back home.
How would you feel if it turns out A2A is just the dying 'dream' of Bolly Knickers? That would suck, I think, and was one of the reasons I was reluctant to watch the show. Anyway, I've recently watched the ep where she is put in the freezer of a thief's restaurant.
Down Under - well, I heard about the flute thing in an Aussie music quiz/game show I always watch, called "Spicks and specks" (after the great Bee Gees song...their first number 1 in Australia...and they were on a boat to England after not getting big hits here! I.e. they heard they'd reached number one here while they were sailing away from us!). Anyway, whoever holds the rights to Kookaburra Laugh, or whatever, must have got word about this, and they took MAW to court. Who Can It Be was their hit. Americans seem like Aussie bands when they do stuff which sounds different to whatever is going on in the US, and I think that that song fits the bill.
If you want the video to the MAW song, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNT7uZf7lew
Didn't mind some of their other, later songs, but not a real big fan of them. E.g good songs include Be Good Johnny, Dr Hekyl & Mr Jive etc.
(edit in: just watched the ep re guy in bathtub who shot himself...they were playing Michael Jackson's "One day in your life" and it was REALLY annoying me! They played other songs too...the reason seems to be that they don't trust the actors to convey emotions to th audience so they 'prime' the audience with 'appropriate' music. They just happened to choose songs that I didn't want to hear...really annoying having music used in that way...which leads into your comment about Come On Eileen ep, which I haven't seen yet....)
re Come On Eileen...inappropriate comment coming up...was watching or listening to something or other, and the gist of it (it was a joking kind of exchange) was that the title was the name of a movie...a porn movie. If I'm being to obscure...no, don't ask!
re Keitel...he just seemed a different kind of character to Glenister. Glenister was an archetype, whereas Keitel was a senior cop...well, that's how his persona came across to me anyway...but sure, there are probably bits where he did show some mettle.
re anime...forget why that topic is up, but if I haven't mentioned it before, I loved Watchmen, but haven't read the comic. Maybe those who have hated the movie. Only seen one manga movie, from memory...had a scene of vagina dentata...forget what it was called. One off movie, I think.
re True Blood...that might just be on cable here now, so can't check it out. I'm a big Buffy fan. Not so much an Angel fan. If I haven't mentioned it before, I absolutely loved the foreign movie "Let the right one in". Supernatural type themes. Heard that the US version had voice overs. I saw the version with subtitles in Australia and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Great voices those actors!
re accents - did see Merryl Streep do an Aussie accent in Evil Angels (a.k.a "A cry in the dark" for the US). Generally she got it right, but occasionally she made some howlers...I thought. Did hear later that the woman she was pretending to be actually came from New Zealand...so maybe Merryl got it right? If she was meant to be doing an Aussie accent, she made some howlers in any case, I thought.
re Brit series...yeah, Being Human...it's on a digital channel over here and I hardly watch that channel. Maybe the main channel will show it later. They do that sometimes. Gene Genie is in "Demons", which is a UK series, I think.
re Flash Forward...odd, it was advertised weeks ago here and nothin' since. Maybe they just wanted to let the download crowd know that they would show it here very quickly after it screens in the US...we're pretty bad downloaders, apparently, which is why many US shows now screen out of our usual ratings period, like House, which I like. Didn't know about the dream element. Did watch Dark Angel. Ok. In the US, after the holocaust, everyone apparently watches Australian Rules football on the tv! Probably mentioned Jericho here too, before. Tremendous bore!
Later.
P.S. another edit it - didn't you mention the Vampire Diaries before? You're a fan? I saw a promo for that series on one of the network's digital channels. Not sure I'll check it out though...seems more of a teen romancy type show.
re Britcoms- Have to look into some of those, see what their about. Think I'm finally going to break down and start ordering some stuff online again. Been holding out hoping for a better exchange rate, or at the very least a more stable one (was watching it one day and there was a 5 cent US change in a matter of a couple hours!), but I don't think I'm going to get one any time soon.
re Bolly knickers- if it is, you'd be the first to pick up on it. The general concensus seems to be that Bolly refers to some sort of fancy chamapagne. Imagine you can put the rest of it together.
re Sam in tunnel- No, you saw Sam save the 70s gang in the tunnel. It faded to black after the jump, and when the pic came back up Sam was in the tunnel again. He proceeds to shoot the bad guy, saving the day, some lines thrown in along the lines of "I'm back, promised I'd be there" to Annie, and then Gene making some Gene-like remarks. Then it cuts to the pub where everyone seems to forgive Sam, then kiss, and drive off into the sunset.
One of the biggest complaints about the sequence of events with the last ep was that Sam went back to the exact moment he left 73 even though obviously some time had passed in 2006.
I think if A2A really turns out to be Alex's dying dream there is going to be some disappointment, maybe. There has been more than enough set up to push it in that direction, and would most likely just write A2A off after that. With A2A coming around partly to put a more definative answer on what is going on, at some level it would be expected to be a dream. For me there has never been as big a draw to A2A as there was with LOM, so I'm not going to be that bummed out if I don't care for the ending.
re MAW- relistened to Down Under, and at the very beginning it sounds more like Kookaburra Laugh, but still think it's ridiculous. Who Can It Be Now definately gets more air time over here still than Down Under, and never heard Be Good Johnny or Dr. Hekyl and Mr. Jive until you mentioned them.
re A2A music and confidence- Series 1 was terrible about that. Was cleaned up some in series 2 - there is a scene with Phil Collin's 'In the Air Tonight' that worked really well. Series 1 just overall seemed to have lost any real finess or subtlty with the actors. It almost seemed like a filler series - get it out there and feed the craze while we come up with something better, especially plot wise.
re anime- definately a genre that you got to be picky about when watching, probably because it runs the full gauntlet from more regular, everyday stuff to fluff to hardcore gore to hardcore porn. Something can seem fairly normal one minute and turn into some very bizare stuff the next. Maybe it's a culture difference, but I have definately come across previews of stuff that just leave me going 'Huh? How'd that jump happen?'
re dubbing- if it is an animated film/show/whatever, I can stand dubs because the mouths aren't detailed enough to be a bother, and a decent job is done to get them matching up. WIth live action stuff, though, if I am going to sit and watch the screen as it is going I absolutely hate dubs. Watched the French film 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' (highly recommend it) for a class project. Origianlly tired to have the American dub on; took about a minute until I had to switch back over to the French with subtitles it was so distracting. Went back and listened to the American track with my eyes closed and the voice overs didn't do as good a job with it, and the voices didn't fully match the characters. I also think there is something lost with a film, more live action than animated, when you don't watch it with the original voices.
re True Blood- Buffy seems to still be the top vamp show. True Blood has its moments, but there are still a lot of kinks that are dragging it down from being a great show - like some pointlessly drawn out secondary plot lines. Buffy also seemed to round the characters out more; TB's suffering from writers that are currently trying to take the hard lines of good characters and bad characters - boring.
re Demons- stay away from. Had potential but just took too many corny turns and couldn't drag itself out. Had a one series, 6 ep run and that was pretty much 4 eps too long. Also, Glenister's accent, kind of scary in of itself. Will admit it got better over the eps, until the last ep and it sounded like garbage again.
re Dark Angel- tried to watch some of it was airing over here, but caught on too late, was on a network I never kept up with and as a result never knew when it was on. Heard it was one of those shows that just sort of disappeared over here and there never was any sort of ending.
re Vampire Diaries- Yes there is the teen romance element with it (and find the high school portrayl such crap now that I've been through it all), but I read the books when I was younger, and am watching to see what's done with it for the adaption. There seems to be a big part of the audience that is like that, so a show that is technically geared for preteens/teens it winding up with a bit of a following in the slightly older crowds because of the source material. Three eps in and it seems to be finding its feet, and not too terrible of an adaption really. There are a few things they changed to make it much easier to film that make it lose some of its fun, but for the big elements it seems to be going good.
Later.
re exchange rate...before the GFC the Aussie dollar was almost 1:1 before it tumbled. Last I heard it's nudging 90 cents. Good for me, as far as buying stuff from Amazon goes, which I do. Not sure...maybe the US dollar is going into decline so buying stuff sooner rather than later is the way to go...just guessing. Wouldn't mind maybe buying some foreign movies which aren't readily available here...e.g. Le Grande Chemin, or the Gerard Depardiue version of Cyrano de Bergerac. Enjoyed the movie 12 Monkeys, which is based on a short, I think...called La Jettee or something...curio value, perhaps...saw it ages ago...quite soothing...never would have thought of the German language as mellifluous, but it proved me wrong!
re Bolly knickers...yeah, Bollinger champagne. Still doesn't knock down my Edina Monsoon tie in though...Eddie was always going on about Bollie, I think, as well as Lacroix...it was a running joke...she always corrected misprouncements of that brand. Good series...really loved her physical humour...patting her daughter on the head in a very odd way...she found it hard to express warmth towards her. Alex is pretty much a dead ringer for Eddie, in some ways. Just saw the first ep of the next series...interesting...maybe drawing on the US version? re people from 'real' present in the past...going on memory though.
re Sam in tunnel...yeah, said it once, said it...just hated how the guys' fate was left in the balance when he returned to reality. Turned the show into a tragedy...guy takes his life over a delusion. Would have preferred Sam to get the other cops out of their pickle, and then return to the present and live happily ever after or something. Instead we got tragedy. Like I say, there's no point revisiting Sam's situation with Alex...the show maybe should re-interpret the ending of Sam...a Twilight Zone type of solution, maybe. If it's just Sam all over again, then that was the main reason I was reluctant to watch A2A. We'll see. Where are you up to with the show in the US?
re Men At Work-just looked at their compilation online, and It's A Mistake is another song I know and don't mind. Overkill is the only other song I've heard, apart from the two I mentioned before. Not really a huge fan of them...Down Under is the main song that gets played here and I'm happy to hear it. There's other Aussie bands from that time I like a lot more.
re In The Air Tonight...apart from the drum solo, I'm just not into that song at all...can't say I look forward to hearing it on A2A! Not a big Collins fan...he had some songs I quite liked but got over in time. He has some godawful songs too, I think...the worst ones he has won Oscars for!
re dubs in movies...I really liked the voices in Let The Right One In and even though I didn't understand what they were saying, their inflections added to what I was reading on screen. Did hear that Mel Gibson was dubbed for Americans in his Australian debut, I think, Mad Max! He was born in the US! Mad Max 2 is one of the greatest movies of all time, and you don't need to have seen the first to appreciate it, I don't think. Have heard also that one recent movie had two versions...US dub and subtitles...that sucks...the subtitled one should be standard. Hmmm...there's going to be a US remake of Let The Right One In...Aussie boy will star in it. Will not watch it. Original perfect.
re True Blood...not on free to air here...might watch it if it was. Was going to say I may have been lucky in missing debut of Vampire Diaries, but the digital station is like cable...have repeats. First ep seemed very emo. Don't think that will change much. Seen the first two eps though. Will see if I stick with it. Same went for Flash Forward...started watching it, distractedly, and bailed. Then glanced at a review which had some plot info (might even count as a spoiler, which I hate...reviews reprinted from other sources which are ahead of us and give away info), which sounded interesting, so I watched the free to air rescreening of that ep...that's something that networks here are doing more...repeating shows once, to hook you. Heard that a big mystery is solved in the first 8 eps. When I distractedly watched the show first time round, it reminded me of Lost, so I was inclined to give it a miss, but I am a fan of Lost. Just seemed an imitation of it. It's better than Jericho, in any case.
re Demons...no intention really of watching it...thought it might interest you. Commercial tv here now is running Little Britain USA and I'm enjoying it...first ep was hilarious. Giles from Buffy does the voice over work. Did think that Little Britain may have been flogging a dead horse, but that hasn't screened for a while, so I'm back into the swing of the US version. Did that screen there? Network tv? It does do gross out comedy. First ep made me think it might suck...Rosie O'Donnell on it, and I thought it would go the US route of sucking up to the guests, but just when I thought that that was what was happening, BANG, Marjorie drops a bombshell statement on Rosie...funny, in a crude way. Like the gym guys...man, sometimes that show is like live action South Park!
re Dark Angel...pretty sure that that had a proper ending...just don't remember it. A B series, defo. You can tell a B series...when the networks run eps back to back, to get rid of them, it becomes a chore to watch it...like with Dark Angel.
Back to Vampire Diaries...it's Angel meets Emos...but Angel was very Emo to start with anything, wasn't he? Did VD get written before Buffy/Angel? Just wondering if it's modelled itself on it, a bit.
re exchange rate- been keeping an eye and it's as high as it's been in a few months, but I've had to rethink buying stuff. Had to shell out more for an upcoming game ticket than expected, so don't know if I want to spend the extra money on the discs. Think I might do the discs for Christmas.
re A2A- not real sure where BBCA is up to with the eps. Don't get BBCA, so A2A is one of those shows I watch online and buy the discs to make up for it, so I'm caught up through the end of series 2. Tempted to say that series 2 hasn't begun airing over here at all. Remember people making inquiries while it was doing its premier run in the UK, but haven't heard anything since. It makes me wonder if BBC is just figuring that want to see from over here will look it up online. Series 1 they were nazi-like in getting it off the net, and there were only some Chinese sites that you could find it on, but with series 2, last time I looked, the vids are still up over on youtube under the name Ashes to Ashes series 2, ep x. The only ones that have been altered are the ones that have a music track in them that WGM (?) holds rights to, so all the audio has been removed but the video is still there.
As for what they're trying to do or drawing from the US version with 'real' people - I have no clue what is going on, though some leaked series 3 production shots seem to lend credence toward one particular theory.
re Vampire Diaries- the books for the Vampire Diaries were released in the early 90s - first three in 91, the fourth in 92. The author said she had wanted to do more with it, and is taking the opprotunity to add another arc to the series. The first book for that came out in February, and the next one is due out this coming February. I know that Buffy exists in novel form, but don't know when those were started, so not sure if there was any influence there.
The show does seem to be going more emo than the books were - more relationship drama junk and the female lead is more mopey in the show. Never read/saw any of the Twilight stuff, but I think there might be some influence coming in to the show from that since that is what's in right now. There was a lot of material in the books, however, that could be pushed for extreme emo-ness if the writers want it (i.e.Elena-parents just died, Stefan-vampire's are evil and I must fight my nature, etc). Worst change to add emo stuff is Elena's brother- in the books the sibling was a young (about 4 y.o.) sister, got changed to screwed up teenage brother.
It started getting a bit better, but missed the last ep due to a game. Heard action wise it was pretty good, waiting to see if the network is going to put it up on their site. The actor who plays Damon (Ian something - is on LOST), one of the vamp brothers, has been stealing the show - perfect sarcastic humour mixed with the right amount of jerk and mystery.
re Little Britain USA- remember hearing about it a few years ago on a free network, but don't think it did to well. Wanna say it was pulled half season or there abouts. Don't know if someone else picked up the rest of it or not.
Later.
re exchange rate...I've heard that the Australian dollar will get to parity sometime soonish. As long as our interest rates are higher than yours, that will be the case. Good for me, online shopping in any case.
You mentioned earlier eps which feature Come On Eileen and In The Air Tonight. Think I've seen those. Didn't blink with In The Air, but I was wondering if the Come On Eileen bit was a bit suss. The band, Dexy's Midnight Runners, might have had gypsy origins, perhaps. Seem to remember hearing something about that anyway. So, the suggestion is that Gene inspired the song? Not sure. Odd anyway. Not that appreciative of those kind of jokes. Bit pat.
re Vampire Diaries...sounds like those books existed before Buffy. The Buffy movie was released some years before the tv series, I think, but I'm guessing that it was after V.D. Maybe Joss put his own twist on the books? I.e. influence really running the other way.
re Emo...well, I mean the central characters are all very Emo...poetry writing vampires? Let me tell ya...I've never met a vampire who keeps a diary! They just don't exist! Stefan seems very Angelish. I liked Willow as a wiccan sidekick to Buffy, but I just don't dig Elena's Willow. Damon seems a Spike like figure...you think Joss read VD?
re Little Britain USA...I liked the first episode a lot (made a mistake last post...the guy from Buffy isn't in this series...he featured in Little Britain, but not this series. Ex Dr Who, Tom Baker, has always been the voice-over guy for this show). Can't seem to find You Tubes in sequence, but this collection looks relevant:
http://tinyurl.com/yl3wqmf
Did enjoy this sketch from a recent episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7CpHVyY6Rs
Was looking at some links to stuff I liked and seemed that the US, even on cable tv, is censoring stuff that goes uncensored on free to air tv here. E.g the first ep, I think, had a very funny sketch about two gym guys. The online videos had their crotches blacked out. Here it wasn't. The funny thing was that only when I looked where I shouldn't have been looking, did I see another thing. No point linking to that sketch, as you are missing an element of the joke. Odd that. It screens here at around 10 pm. Odd that US cable blacks out prosthetics...another, big fat female character also had her boobs blacked out online. We saw it all here. It's just prosthetics...why black it out? I mean the woman was a guy, a star of the show.
Interested in Australian sketch shows? Can You Tube bits I like, if you like.
Remember finding this D Generation sketch hilarious years ago...I'd like to be on this quiz show!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mH7RUkgQt4
From a couple of years ago, I got a big laugh from the news satire programme "Newstopia". Here's a story on Apple's new "i-Gun"...what do you think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXh3EfX_CqA
re TVD/Joss- read on either wiki or here that Joss's insipiration for Buffy was a twist on the horror stuff where girl runs down dead end alley and typically gets killed; he wanted something where girl actually wins. Suppose he could have read the books, and comparing Elena and Buffy I can definately see similarities in character personalities. Never saw the Buffy movie, though, so not real sure on Buffy's character pre chosen one. Actually can see several paralells between Buffy and TVD, now that I think about it. Think it would be interesting to really know if there was influence there.
re Emo- you've met vamps? Have any interesting coversations? Seriously, though, Stefan is the worse of the lot, or at least for the show's sake I hope so. Caught up on the ep I missed and they're definately getting Elena on track to something better. The problem with Bonnie is that she seems to be combining two sidekicks into one. The books had Merideth who was the strong silent one that nothing really ever phased and just went ahead. Book Bonnie was more like Willow, but flatter. I'm sure that one of the reasons the two were combined was to give the sidekick more depth without having to try - just give all the material to one person and instant better balanced character, not great, but more balanced.
Poetry writing vampire = Spike
re Damon/Spike- judge is still out on that. Books, sort of; Damon was a bastard in life and kept it up as vamp, but at the same time had the attitude that no one was going to mess with the group but him. Show - they're screwing with the brothers' back story, and maybe more with Damon's present situation, so I don't know how close the paralells will be. Hope they keep the redeming qualities because otherwise he's just a jerk and that just gets boring.
re Little Britain USA- after watching some of the clips on youtube, not surprised in the least that it got pulled. Americans wouldn't get most of the humour in it, and that it is another country pointing out faults and making fun of them, how dare they! Everyone must think Americans are the best, and we just can't have it any other way. (pure sarcasm, but sadly there are people that think like this)
Loved that "where do I know your face" skit. Would love to see that play out in real life. Have a waiter that that is his second job, stuck pleasing a bunch of snotty rich folks, and pull something like that when the guy won't leave him alone. Was another skit with a hospital receptionist that found hilarious, and one with Vicky Pollard at one of those reform camps.
Also liked that quiz show thing and the "newstopia" clip. I've seen clips and reruns of old quiz shows from over here and it seemed just like that, to the point the contestants weren't even sure of the rules. Newstopia looks like it would be a riot, and the woman playing the CNN correspondant has everything right down to the hair style perfect. I could see the iGun as a latest rage among gang bangers, and then a sudden drop in their numbers due to accidents. Then you could do something with conspiracy theories, the gangs going after apple and a gang of technonerds rising up to fight them, and have everything culmunate in apple going broke due to lawsuits from the family members of the original gangs. Which would be bittersweet because I've had fewer problems with my mac computer than ever had with a Windows base, but maybe someone could buy the company after bankrupcy and make the damn things cheaper.
If you have/know of clips of the Australian sketch shows I'd love to see them. Not much of a fan of any of our current ones.
re US censor- mens' crotches are almost guaranteed to be blacked out at any level of tv unless clothed to where nothing is visible, ie nothing so tight you can make out details. There are some channels that are premium cable that might, and that is a big if, clear it, like HBO, Showtime, Starz, and maybe one more that I can't think of right now. The most recent experience I've had was with True Blood, which is an HBO show. There were some sequences that were supposed to be sex party orgy, type things that consisted mainly of naked people feeling each other or people just running around naked, and a handful or crotch shots made it in, but nothing is very clear and most are in the background.
In general, nudity of women seems to be relaxing more, though it is almost always done for sexual context, or filmed/edited in a way to draw attention to the nudity and that the nearest male character is probably wishing he was screwing her. Most channels are getting to the point that as long as the nipple is covered, it is okay, and the bottom half needs to be posed in a way that no hair is shown and you can't see the v, and in general you won't get a full back shot if there is nothing on. That is okay though if something as skimpy as a thong is on, which don't really see the difference. The online blackout you saw may have been done for online, or the nipple was showing so they just did everything, and she was fat. Rare anyone is nude that doesn't have a fairly sculpted body, esp. women.
As slutty as the population at large can be, those in charge of the media industry are still not willing to show human bodies uncovered on tv. Even in movies, don't think they allow full frontal nudity without slapping the highest rating on it, and there are a lot of movie theaters over here that won't show movies with that rating. Americans, when it comes to nudity/sex related stuff in media, seem okay with it as long as it relates directly to sex, but are otherwise still kind of horrified by it. I can see a show like Little Britain USA airing on this one channel later at night, in a block whose target audience is 18-25 year old males that appreciate low brow humour and will laugh at anything sex/racial/etc in it just because it is considered inappropriate by American society, but at the same time most of what the show does would probably be over their heads. It would also lose respect because of the (mostly correct) generalization of shows in that category.
Don't know if the story would have gotten any over seas play, unless to show how uptight Americans are on nudity, but about 8-9 years ago at the Superbowl (football's final game to determine the best of the year) halftime show Janet Jackson had a "wardrobe malfunction." Part of her costume that covered one of her breasts got ripped off on live television. At the time there was no delay on live events over here unless it was something that there was expected profanity, which most of the time just means they're worried about possible cursing. A big to-do was made of the breast being shown on what is supposed to be a prime time family show. Caused new laws to go into effect that says networks must have at least a five second delay on ALL live broadcasts, no matter what it is, and a huge investigation on how supposedly "indecent" American television had become at a moral level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXXVIII_halftime_show_controve rsy
Later.
P.S.- out of curiosity was on the True Blood board (sorry everything seems to be coming back there, just most active board I'm on as of late), and someone made a comment about how they thought the show would be better if it was set in California or New York instead of backwoods nothern Louisiana, a state considered deep southern US. Just wondering if as someone not from the states but who gets a lot of our programming, if seeing a different setting makes it any more interesting or not, or if it makes any difference at all. Know as someone living in the interior of the country it gets old seeing everything set primarily in either New York or California. In Australia, do you have something similar, where programs tend to focus on one or two areas and ignore the rest of the country, or is it more diverse?
re Buffy...yeah, I've heard Joss' comments on that aspect. Don't know too much about vampire stories to say whether this teen love aspect is common or not. The Buffy movie wasn't that great...ok. The Buffy in that was a spunk (slang: good looking person of either sex).
re witch on Vampire Diaries...I just find her dull. Buffy was actually the weak link of the show...Willow and Xander was just great characters...not sure if I mentioned this before, but the companions on Dr Who weren't always as good Tom Baker's Dr Who could be. A hypotherical story where Tom Baker was Who and he had Willow and Xander as sidekicks would have been great.
re poetry writing Spike...you've jogged my memory...he was a bit wimpy as a human, I think. Wrote poetry, eh? In V.D. it's a case of a vampire writing a diary, which is different, I think. You'd think he would have gotten bored with it after a hundred years!
re Vicky Pollard...yeah, but no but, but yeah but no but...she was an iconic figure in the show. In the 2nd ep, I think they could have gotten really funny, but it was too mild...there's a scene where the American girls sort of do a Vicky, but they don't really go for it, like the Vicky guy. I was thinking that Vicky had a precedent in Kylie Mole, from the Australian sketch comedy The Comedy Company, but there isn't a lot of material online for that...don't really want to link to something not up to scratch...old show...can't even remember the sketches of her I would have liked...did enjoy Col'n Carpenter from that show though...there is stuff on that...about a loser...did find this hilarious at the time...long forgotten, but maybe check out this and the dating one or more if you like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmVNUm4xFes
re Newstopia...great first 2 series, I think. Love the guy behind that, Shaun Micallef. Here's some more...the show is on a government funded network which caters to multi-cultural needs...notorious for nudey European movies and Hitler docus. They run an actual German show about a police dog, called "Inspector Rex". Newstopia runs heaps of fake ads for shows and products. Here's and ad for "Inspektor Herring"...brilliantly absurd:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER3XUpy25WQ
Loved this commercial for a product...totally left-field
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXePOxmrPuc
Also a big fan of his original series, The Micallef Program/Programme/Pogram.
A fave sketch from that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXZWouXq84A
Loved that "Dr Miracle" series in that show...the first episode had me completely baffled but either I made more sense out of it later, or it started making sense! (actually, seeing it again on You Tube gives me an insight into why the show is the way it is...probably didn't get that all those years ago). Here's the first ep...sound doesn't seem properly synched, but what do you think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AipgFeGh-nY
re i-Gun sketch...I love the subtlety of it...they say how many have been sold and mention that many of the buyers are uncontactable...hmmm...I wonder why? And it's killer how the main concern by that woman is damage to hearing by using the product! If she's not talking about the loudness of the music, then hearing damage will be the least of your concerns afterwards!
re quiz show sketch-did like an SNL video I saw on this theme...other stuff I've seen from that hasn't grabbed me so much...quiz shows must make me laugh or something. re computer lady on Little Britain...another source for catch phrases here. re censoring...I was studiously avoiding looking at those two gym guys' crotches but I'm glad I did...they're massive guys, and they have really small genitals...funny. Last week the thought of Danny deVito got them hard...and you could barely tell! Funny. Here in Australia, in the 70's, there were programmes on prime time, on commercial networks, which had full frontal male and female nudity. We're more conservative here now. US shows always seemed to have had women who love their man, but are very coy about showing their tits to them, hence they always have a bed sheet covering their nipples. Weird.
re wardrobe malfunction...yeah, that made the news here.
re locales on tv - I can tend to be irritated by the Southern US accent, but maybe the ones I am hearing are Northern impressions of it. I do like Andie McDowall's accent...hope I spelled her name right. Maybe I tend to hear caricatures of the accent or something. Setting not really a clue over here...usual connotations about the South, I suppose, but maybe other pointers get missed here with other locations. Critics over here tend to say that Australians like to think of themselves as in touch with the country but the vast majority of Australians live in the cities, on the coast. Did see a very good telemovie called "3 act of murder", which was based on fact, but set in the country. Generally you see rural set stuff here tend to be either in soaps, or maybe represented as menacing.
Curious as to how well the Micallef stuff translates to the US...I think he is the true heir to Monty Python. What did you think?
re vamp stories- in teen vamp stories, there usually is a love element. There are some that go different routes. 'The Silver Kiss' by Annette Cruise Klaus (think that was her name) was different. Been a long time since I read it, but that dealt more with an evil maker and the child trying to kill him, or something like that. Sadly, the Twilight series seems to have become the quintessential teen vamp story right for this teen generation. For older readers, if a book is classified as sci-fi, then there usually isn't really a love story, maybe just some relationship stuff thrown in every once in a while. If it is classified as romace, then they can read just like the teen books, just with sex scenes and a bit thicker plot, but not always.
There was a vampire short story released recently in one of those collections with multiple authors by an old favourite author of mine, Garth Nix. He did some fantasy/sci-fi stuff very well, but some of his later stuff kind of went down in quality and more juvenile. Waiting for the library to pick it up, though, as didn't want to buy a 100+ page book for only wanting to read about 30 pages. The stuff he had released previously, was put under the teen section, but I'd recommend his 'Shade's Children' or his Abhorsen series to anyone, though 'Lireal' in the Abhorsen series isn't quite as good as the others.
re poetry Spike- he still had a bunch of that stuff laying around his crypt when he began babysittting Dawn in the later seasons.
As for TVD diary writing, don't understand why they gave that to Stefan in the show. Not a bright move. Luckily they seem to have be getting away from that element for any of the characters.
re Little Britain USA- got watching some of the stuff on youtube, and got curious since it seemed like it held its own for a bit over here. Found out that it had a one series run on HBO last year. Guess what I saw on network a couple years back was a test run or maybe just Little Britain that they were trying to bring over.
re Colin Carpenter- loved the survey sketch. The literal answers to the questions, something that I would love to see that done in real life just to screw with the survey guy. Was hard to hear the Carpenter guy sometimes though.
re Micallef- found a sketch about funeral directors protesting that found very entertaining, and a sketch where he is interviewing/condeming an airplane crash survivor. From what I've seen of Monty Python, it is in the same vein of humour. Like it better actually. Found some of the Monty Python stuff to just be a little strange, but not really funny, whereas Micallef at least could snicker at most of it. Sidenote, saw a documentary the other day for a class that was written and narrated/hosted by Terry Jones from the Monty Python group, and have to say it was probably the first entertaining documentary that ever saw in a class. It was great to see a documentary that knew how to mix sarcasm and humour into getting the facts across.
re Dr Miracle- took a look at a couple of them and just couldn't get into it. Get the whole spoof thing, but just, eh. Came across like the guy was handed the script just a few minutes before they started rolling while everyone else just went with the flow and ignored his goofs - like left in bloopers.
re iGun- definately needs to go on the list of top sketches. The dead on performances combined with the ridiculousness of the product and subtle dialogue makes for an instant classic.
re computer lady- Got caught in a cycle the other day of watching her stuff. Don't know why I kept finding it funny since it is pretty much all the same thing, but something about the character that I like.
re coy women- it isn't something I fully understand, but for awhile there was an image put forward by media that a woman was sexier because she did that. Most likely has something to do with Americans being taught to be afraid of nudity in media and that it is a bad thing. Also a way for a show to have a naked woman on there without getting in trouble with the Federal Communucation Commission and having to pay fines.
I was just about to PM you because I thought you didn't realise I had replied to you! I.e. last time I replied soon after you did, so I thought you were looking at the board and assumed that I hadn't replied yet (I check my history for my last post, click on it, and see if people have replied). Anyway...
re Twilight...haven't watched that...did read somewhere that Pattinson is on the nose, hygiene wise! But bad b.o. is something I guess a lot of girls would gladly put up with to be around him! Wonder if True Blood will be on commercial tv here...VD is on a digital channel, so network doesn't think it will rate on main channel.
re other vampire stories...do remember a Dr Who ep with my fave dr, Tom Baker, concerning an interplanetary variety...forget what the 5 ep arc was called though...Planet of the dead? Dunno. This might have been in the declining year or so of that show, which I tend to forget. Might have been a good story though...hmmm...maybe it was with Baker's successor? Memory very foggy here.
re Spike and poetry...hmmm, do find philosophy of vampires a bit incoherent...reminded of this with V.D...Stefan talking about his bro not having any humanity left...so...why does Stefan have humanity then? All a bit fluffy...Angel had that whole "soul" malarkey, but you just put up with that stuff! Did not Stefan write in his diary in the book?
re Little Britain USA...think it was a very short run, which is probably true of Little Britain too...so, doubt if it was pulled. Friend's David Schwimmer behind the scenes on that. Personally, I thought that the show had run its course with LB, and the characters having been flogged to death, but, like I said, that first USA ep was hilarious...absence makes Henry Fonda or some such. The two gym guys were a welcome addition...as was that little American girl!
re Col'n Carpenter...a running gag was how he was incomprehensible...he'd get asked his name and the other guy would say "Con?" and other variants. Years later seeing UK variants on two talking heads with at least one being a moron made me think that the Carpenter stuff was the apex of that form.
UK comedy Alas Smith And Jones did that kind of stuff too...been a while since this was on, and haven't full watched the clip...maybe it's a good one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aszMI5YSYNY
Maybe one of the first tv ones is the Dudley Moore and Peter Cook show "Not only but also":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9OCS08rabE
Moore was a Hollywood star for a while. SBS TV screened this show some years ago, despite being decades old.
re Micallef and air crash disaster...is that the one where the woman says that her husband would have wanted her to find a new man and he insensitively asks whether her husband, if he were alive, would want her to be having sex with another guy? You gotta link for that? re Dr Miracle...yeah...what I missed first time around was the opening credits which sets up the premise...the 'actor' playing Dr Miracle pretty much does everything on the show...and he's bad. Thought I maybe didn't get the first sketch or maybe the humour grew on me, but at the time, the next in the series I found to be the funniest part of the show...just loved the absurdity of it all. So, yeah, the joke is that this is the worst show in the world and he's winging it...it's not like you could learn anything about real hospitals watching it!
Back to air crash...not sure, but maybe UK's Alan Partridge show did that kind of stuff before Micallef...i.e. bad interviewers. Never really got to properly watch it...poorly treated by the networks here...would love to check it out in full. BUT, BEFORE Micallef, before Partridge, before Ali G, before Borat, there was Australia's Norman Gunston (interviewing All In The Family's Sally Struthers...her reactions makes this funny):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW2kSkurQFs
Remembered a sketch I liked from Micallef...it's long but the wife cracks me up in it...especially at the start...touch of the Tammy Fayes about her!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC0ZFC2O_4E
Back to Monty Python...yeah, have found lots of it unfunny when seeing it years later, and some of it just seems dated...Micallef was the same, but he seems more contemporary...hit and miss still, but hilarious when he nails it, like Python. My favourite Python sketch is (well it was):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhJQp-q1Y1s
Before Monty Python there was Spike Milligan...Python acknowledge that Milligan was doing Python before Python. I used to love his "Q" series...over here it was a short length series...not sure if that is how the UK screened him. Show long gone...so, did a quick search...can't remember great sketches I liked...this one is ok:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7uwM2Ogl9Q
I was looking for a D Generation sketch where they did "It's academic" game show parodies...couldn't find them, but this sketch always made me laugh...you might have to be familiar with the tv show it targets though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC4frcXimz4
Last vid (a lot I know!)...during the Sydney Olympics, I was a big fan of Roy & H.G's "The dream" show...they provided 'expert' commentary on the sports on their show. Wanted the female gymnastics one, but sound quality really bad, so here's the male gymnastics...you might appreciate it more in any case!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKFWE1xt_x0
re coy women...yeah, nipples are evil. Actually, Hollywood used to have a code...tv too, probably...gymnastics involved...if you had a man and a woman in bed, each needed to have a foot on the floor...it was some rule...you had to be coy in depicting couples. Which probably explains why married couples in old tv shows had two single beds in their rooms!
Back to Little Britain...Vicky Pollard was a fave of mine...since you don't get UK shows much in the US, you probably missed a well known comedienne's turn as Vicky's mother...she used to team with Ab Fab's Saunders...Dawn French...big girl.
Hmmm...just tried You Tubing it...German version only available!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mRrrtEK3I
Sorry if that's too many vids!
I try to get through all the vids before I reply. A new version of the browser I use came out recently, and youtube has been off since. I can usually only watch a few clips before it starts slowing down and not loading correctly. When I watch the stuff you send, I usually look at some of the other ones that are related, and the site just starts acting up. There was an update for the version earlier this week, but it still isn't at top condition.
re Dr. Who- if the arc you're thinking about was called Planet of the Dead, then the writers are recycling titles. The hour special that came out earlier this year (Easter maybe? just sometime before May) was called Planet of the Dead. There weren't any vamps in it, though. It was a planet that had been turned into a giant desert by some beings that looked like enormous metal sting rays whose whole purpose it seemed was to go around destroying worlds.
re vamp philosophy- since they're fiction, eveyone has their own spin to them, like werewolves or other shapeshifters. Pretty much the only consistent thing is that they need blood to survive, but there are some that try to squirm out of that one. Remember picked something up one time where they supposedly feed off psychic energy or something similar. My opinion that isn't a vamp, but some other creature. From my personal observations, most of the time the vamps tend to act more like normal humans, or at least not brainless killing machines, when there is a real plot to the story. When the entire work is focused on the characters staying alive, those vamps are more the mindless killers whose sole purpose is to go around ripping out throats and drinking blood.
re VD (really wish TVD would catch on, VD is too open to ridicule, anywho)- in Buffy, I'm guessing soul=humanity. In TVD and in the books, including the ones the author wrote later that included vampires, there is never anything suggesting vampires are inherintly evil or humanityless. Like people, vampires could be good or bad depending on personality and whatnot. I think Stefan saying Damon had no humanity could be compared in the real world to someone saying that a serial killer had no humanity. In the TVD world, there is a bit of fate stuff going on, but not so much that people can't determine for themselves what they want their actions to be.
In the books, Stefan kept no diary. In the last book that came out he wrote on a computer for his girlfriend while she was kind of incapacitated for a bit. In the books it probably wouldn't have seemed as wierd if he had, though, because he was from Renaissance Italy, so character wise it would have played a bit different. Also, think in the books there was too much going on for him to worry about keeping a diary/journal of some sort even if he wanted.
re comedy- loved the Alas Smith and Jones stuff and the Spike MIlligan. Loved the following funeral sketch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgTNx50ehFY&feature=related
The facial expressions and of intonations of the priest are great. There was something about both series that I think was part nostalgia factor for this type of comedy, and particularly with Alas Smith and Jones, there was just something entertaining with the parts where it is profiles of the two of them having a conversation about different relevant stuff from the 80s.
Dudley Moore and Peter Cook I didn't care for as much, but it may have been because I was having trouble getting the full clips to load, and it was kind of stuttery the parts that did load. As it was happening with most of those I pulled up, I think it might of had something to do with the length of the clips; only reason I could come up with anyway.
With Norman Gunston, found some of it funny, and then at times it was just head shaking.
Then there was this clip that I came across, not really positive what show it came off, but think this would be a great sobriety test.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rypNfcCmFU0&feature=related
re Micallef and air crash- this is the one I came across. Several others were listed, but haven't had a chance to watch those.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh8l3VGzIXI
re Generatinon D- I remember something about the Thunderbirds, but don't know if I ever saw it. Japanese import wasn't it, something about a family that saved the world with robots or just high tech military vehicles? Think familiar enough with those type of shows, though, were it was still kind of entertaining. Found a clip that seems to be about 9 minutes of the show. Loved how the roving guys just keep turning up, especially with the car at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq_k_oTBOcU&feature=related
re Little Britain via German- despite only catching a few words here and there, still found it entertaining, and the actors do a good enough job physically where if you know the characters you don't need all the dialogue. The looks that the judge gives are just great, as are the disbelieving looks that Vicky and her Mom give after they've been sentenced.
re You Tube difficulties...I often use it a lot to post up music vids (I've got a list of great tv themes if you are interested...could PM it to you if you like...not sure how many PMs can fit though)...many times the vids are slow to load in which case I open up a lot of tabs with You Tube in them...I'll click on a link to a song, pause it and go to another tab and do the same...multiple times. By the time I'm on my last vid, I'll go to my first vid and it will be all loaded up, so it won't stutter. Just a thought.
re Dr Who vampire ep...just googled ep guide and Wiki says it's "State of decay"...I'm guessing that that is an apt title for the end of Tom Baker's reign...can't exactly remember when it just got dull...maybe with Adric, a companion who might have got picked up on this story arc. Saw a promo for the following Dr playing cricket, which got me really excited, but the new guy's tenure saw me lose all interest in the show.
re vamp philosophy...I remember taking a starkly different view to this to Buffy...in one story arc there were vamps who fed off volunteers...no death involved. Buffy wanted to stake those vamps...I was against it. re "soul", I think that is meant literally in shows like Buffy...it's a show where conventional religious ideas often stand...so, holy water works on them etc. In VD (sorry!) Stefan says he can drink the stuff...so they're not demonic, pehaps. Not sure if they are 'naturalised' in some other way (i.e. not being part of religious theology).
re Alas Smith and Jones...to long ago to have any particular skits in mind...didn't think much of what I sent you...least worst of the little I saw. I did like your clip though, funny. You're seeing that for the first time, are you? I used to watch it, just don't remember it that well. I think Col'n Carpenter is the best example of that type of 'dumb conversations' sketches.
Where did that Scottish drunk test sketch come from?...never mind...answered that already...
re Micallef...my memory is playing tricks with me...I could have sworn he interviewed a woman over her dead husband...think you have the sketch I saw. Fan of that show...he used to have communist sized posters of himself on the set...always had dopey expressions on the posters, which was funny.
Hey, I was lead to another Micallef clip from a previous one I posted...does that bring back happy memories?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpkKvmrwktY
The first series of Micallef's Newstopia often had me in stitches...like this body language expert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbAjFQPvVXY
I watched that D Gen clip you had...did you spot the married couple? Wouldn't have chosen that clip myself...I'm dying to see their parody of the highschool student quiz show "It's academic", but I can't seem to find it. Thunderbirds was a Brit kids show...Hollywood made a live action movie a few years ago, I think. The D Gen skit was based on the original tv series.
Members of the D Gen got absorbed on to the commercial sketch show "Fast forward" which I was a big fan of. Loved Pixie Ann, the sports reporter and daughter of the network's owner...would love to post the one where she interviews the actual champion British darts player, which was a classic, but I can't find it. Here's an interview with a Aussie sports hero:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9VKIs0FwU4
re Norman Gunston...again, hit and miss. Don't really remember much of him but that Struthers interview is the one that gets wheeled out for those compilation shows. You like that interview? She was really funny in that...she had no idea what she was dealing with "HELP!". It's her hysterics which makes it.
re German Little Britain...yeah, it made me laugh...the Germans have a word for everything! Yeah but no but yeah but...forget how they said...dah something nein or whatever.
re Pete and Dud...didn't watch all of the clip I posted...I had in mind the clip where Dud, I think, says that painting is good when the buttocks follow you around the room. Have heard on radio a sketch where they are really foul mouthed...can't seem to find the right clip, though there is one with swearing on it. I suppose the sketch which often gets wheeled out for these two is this one (US references...might be too old for you though!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2o2YYqEck
That Pete and Dud sketch reminded me of an Australian ad you see on those highlight shows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XjDqIG7jvA
I'll wind up with more clip...wanted to track down a Not The Nine O' Clock News sketch re a new reality show...was reminded of it on cable a few years back...couldn't find it...good show though...had Smith and Jones on it.
So...another show I liked...English show The Fast Show. They took the piss out of Spanish tv...a segment I always liked:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctaszjeaDK0
Later.
re Youtube- it actually gets slower if I try and do multiple vids, or freezes. I work off of a mac, and many programs aren't designed to either work with a mac, or at least not well. I'm thinking that what happened was when they updated the brower version, something in the code got tweaked that messed up some of video stuff, like Youtube.
re Dr Who- not really looking forward to the new doctor, but maybe he won't be too bad. Am looking forward to the upcoming specials, but that's more because I'm excited to see Simm as the Master again.
re TVD- it's always been an odd series when it comes to incorporating religious stuff. In the books, they've got no problem going into a run down church, and one of the vamp characters comes back from being completely dead for about a year and the impression is given the character is supposed to be almost a quasi-angel. The show will probably deal with the religious stuff differently. Are you watching it? There was something in the last ep that plays into the religious stuff, but wait for your response before I get into it.
re Alas Smith and Jones- yeah that's the first time I've seen any of their stuff. Out of the few conversation sketches I watched, liked this one the best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3OwvPzVRoA&feature=related
Just find something entertaining about listening to people's comments on technology when it fisrt comes out vs after it has been out for years. The new thing is always going to be the greatest thing ever, and it usually has just as many problems as the old thing. And then another new thing comes out and the cycle starts all over, yet people are always fascinated with the lastes shiny new gadget. Also, unless the Brits have some amazing dish system, they aren't that great. Know that over here you're lucky to get reception if it's cloudy, and if there is an acutal storm you can forget it.
re Micallef- they have one hell of an editor to make that clip look as smooth as it does. The physcial comedy aspect is something that most of our comics over here don't really do anymore, and it's glad to see someone still doing it.
re D Gen- What, you mean married couples don't do romantic dinners and stare longingly at each other? Anywho, I know there were sections where they showed at least people sitting in a theatre, but do you know if that was done before a live audience, or was that just added?
As for the interview, I know nothing about rugby, so couldn't fully appreciate it. Understood enough that they were going for the suggestive stuff, but not being familiar with it, didn't fully get the jokes.
re Norman Gunston- was entertaining how much Struthers was clueless. There was one with Tim Allen, the funny part was how Allen tried to prepare for the interview by compiling a list of culture different words he thought might come up, but then seemed like he couldn't understand Norman anyway. Gets really repetative, so probably don't want to watch the whole thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhBZV_srjEI
Have to give the actor playing Norman Gunston credit, though, for always coming across like an interviewer who thinks his show is about to get canceled.
re German Little Britain- that was a clip I was having problems with, and sadly, didn't realize that opening bit was in German until it played through the second time after I reloaded it. Just heard the beginning sound of each word, and wasn't til I listened closer that made out the German.
re Pete and Dud- vaguely recognize the names as working in the entertainment industry long ago, but couldn't tell you what for, and would definately not recognize them if I was shown a picture. Course there are a lot of people in the entertainment industry now I don't have a clue who they are.
re grease ad- was that a real ad? Just so corny and the chick looks like she has traffic cones in her bra.
re spanish spoof- If Spanish tv is anything like Mexican tv, then this is actually reall mild and doesn't quite capture the absurdity, dramatics, and over playing that is done on the real shows. Also, the women in the spoof have on more clothes than you'd ever see in a regular show.
Later.
I actually watched all of that Norman Gunston clip you linked to...got a good laugh out of Norman saying who his show appealed to...the demograph..."18 to 35"..."any IQ higher than that watches the 7.30 Report instead". Classic. Man, Americans have such tin ears...Norman kept saying "budgie" (I had stacks of them as a kid...one pair at a time. Just btb on Brit coms you'd always see them...but they substituted their calls with that of a canary...anyhoo) and Tim kept say "badgie?". It's quite groan inducing hearing someone like Robin Williams do an Australian accent...it's just so way off. When you hear Norman say "budgie" do you hear it as "badgie"? Really curious. I'd like to donate a vowel to American ears!
Anyway, that was Norman's first foray into commercial tv...remember hearing that he had a nervous breakdown and the series didn't go on. Doubt that the guy who plays Ali G or Borat would ever have such a crisis!
Liked that Smith and Jones clip...had to You Tube someone that they mentioned in order to get the gist of a joke...when Jones is making faces re porno movies, he says a name...I suppose that the US tagline would be "Jim Carrey".
re cable/satellite tv...like Springsteen says...67 channels and nothing on. Had bad reception where I once lived...cable company offering free cable with a phone or vice versa, so I got that because it was cheap and I wanted to use it for network tv instead of my rabit ears. Jones was funny right about it..."so it's just like what we've got on tv now, innit?". Now with digital tv there's even less of an incentive for me to get cable. A digital channel is showing Weeds but last week they played a crappy movie...Matrix 2. Sheesh...I missed seeing that show on network tv and now they're screwing with on digital!
Oh, you mentioned Macs...I hear it is buggy, the new new OS. Some companies are being slugged with huge telco bills because the OS now backs up vast quanitities of data online. Another story I came across re bugs you will want to fix:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/digital-life/computers/a-patch-for-sno w-leopard-20091118-il5c.html
I use the Firefox browser, it's meant to be really good. I've also tried Opera, but on some sites that I use it's buggy so I have to use Firefox for them.
re Dr Who - well, I preferred Tennant to Ecclestone, but my main problem is with the scripts, so it doesn't really matter who plays him...I probably won't have the passion for it that I did for Tom Baker. Colin Baker looked sort of interesting, but by that point I'd given up on the show. Like I said, Tom does the voice over in Little Britain and Giles, from Buffy played the British PM on that show too. In Little Britain USA the PMs poofy assistant had got the gig...man, some of his schtick with the Obama lookalike was quite edgy! Also said before that I thought that Simm would have made a great new Dr...his Master was very reminiscent of Tom Baker's Dr...but that charisma disappeared later in the story arc.
Back to gadgets...here's how it works...every few years introduce a 'new and improved' tv/video/stereo system that makes all your movies and music collection obsolete. You then have to buy the new system/format and replace EVERY movie/album you currently own to be able to enjoy it. Scam. Don't own a PS3 yet, but I really hate the fact that it is no longer backward compatible with PS2. Sucks.
re VD...yeah, I'm still watching it. Interesting Angel story arc on Supernatural too...they don't know whether God exists either! Interesting. Be good to see True Blood on digital. Sounds the more interesting show. Main chick on VD remains me of girl who played Lana Lang on Smallville. Co-incidence? I'm up to the ep where bro stakes that cute friend of Stefan (memory kicking in here!) who came out of nowhere. She looked interesting, then they just go and kill her!
re Micallef - doubt if there's editing...it's just a tilted stage...my imagination wasn't as good as for the older sketch where you could guess how the set was tilted. Set more complicated on that last sketch. Did you get much out of that horror themed restaurant sketch? Might be an acquired taste but I dug the woman who played his wife.
re physical comedy - I admired the physical comedy of Jennifer Saunders in Absolutely Fabulous...she's great...loved the way that she would pat her daughter, going for 'affectionate' but looking like she was patting a toaster or something. Brilliant. Physical comedy required for those goofy poses used in the giant posters on Micallef too.
re D Gen...don't want to watch the vid again...to long, but guessing they did live. re married couple...that became a running gag...you'd get the couple on the couch, in pyjamas, farting away like mad. In the restaurant, I might have missed it on You Tube, but presumably the farts are more disguised. Actually, here's a better quality vid of just that sketch...you can hear the fart better in the restaurant (and why wouldn't you want to hear it?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWTC7kHlCqY
Re sport interviewer...yeah, innuendo etc. You could do that for US football too...tight ends...you have hookers too, don't you? Her classic interview was with Eric Bristow, a legendary darts player from England, where she'd ask questions like "So, if you get your prick in the ring, does that mean you score?". That was classic, but she got flogged to death later on...sorta like Little Britain, but Fast Forward had more episodes to fill.
Back to Gunston, there's one of him with Mick Jagger. From the original series. I used to like watching on cable the Brit original version of "Whose line is it anyway?" BUT, with the Americans on it, oddly enough.
re Pete and Dud- Dud had a mini career in Hollywood with movies like Arthur and 10, with Bo Derek. Apparently Pete was the greatly talented one, but the little pipsqueak Pete got the glory. Saw an interesting drama re this.
As for that Aussie ad...yeah, it's real. Hollywood actress...whoops...British model, who turned to acting. You can't have breasts like that and not be able to sell oil! That was still in the days when Australians tried to sound English...news readers had that pompous kind of diction and a faux English accent.
re Fast Show...found a clip of that foreign language tv parody which had stuff I remembered liking a lot...mainly some of the schtick the guy on the left gets up to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1iX7AIhV8w
Remembered some Not The Nine O Clock News sketches...this one features New Zealand actress Pamela Stephenson and Scottish comedian Billy Connolly...they're married now...maybe it all started here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlUb8jt0WP0
Found this clip you may like with Smith and Jones and Pam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEQeyvPjdf8
Mentioned before a D Generation sketch I loved re quiz show parody, well I was reminded of a similar thing on the UK sitcom The Young Ones (edit: from memory, a comedy who's who here...see Dr House?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxA0a5G6ccg
Might finish off with Shaun Micallef on Thank God You're Here...a big show here, but I heard that the US version got axed. He's the only one without a script in the bit below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vapRi1dcDgo
...think that's it...later...
Oh yeah...series finale of A2A on Monday here...
re Norman Gunston- I heard budgie, and couldn't really figure out why Tim Allen was having such a hard time understanding it. I thought Norman was pretty clear in what he was saying.
re cable/satellite- we just celebrated Thanksgiving over here, and with it being a week with a holiday in it, the tv was worse than usual, cable and non. Honestly, though, the few shows I watch are mostly on cable. Will be moving soon and have been wondering if getting cable is going to be worth it or not.
re Macs- don't have the lastest OS. It came out about a year after I got my computer, and never thought it was worth updating to the new one. Have a theory that that may be why some of the updates don't always work the best though, sicne they are probably made for smoother operation on the new OS.
re browser- I use Safari and Firefox, but Safari tends to be my primary. Safari has Java issues and stuff requiring Java usually won't load on the Safari browser, so having Firefox is a must. When Firefox went through their last version change I didn't care for some of the switches that they did, and in general like Safari better.
re gadgets- Haven't been able to bring myself to even consider getting a Wii or a PS3 yet. The prices on both just dropped over here, but then start thinking about the prices of the games and it's just not worth it. My biggest complaint with the gaming industry was when everyone switched from cartridges to discs so that they could force you to buy memory cards. Same thing with Blueray stuff. Don't understand the point of paying so much for something just to watch movies on, and then having to drop so much on the disc. There difference in picture quality is not worth it.
re TVD- you're not the first one to say that Elena is reminiscent of Lana Lang. Only ever saw one or two eps of Smallville so don't have a clue. Agree with the staking the friend thing. Similar thing happend on True Blood. Introduced a very interesting character and killed him off. The True Blood writers had at least a bit of a reason because the character he was based off of was supposed to die, but it seems to be a problem with the vamp shows right now of killing off some of the more interesting characters. Makes me wonder how out of touch the writers are with what makes the fans happy.
re True Blood- it is definately a more grown up show, but at the same time it suffers from dragging things out and being a bit repetative to the point that it is an insult to the audience. There is also a lot of nudity and sex related stuff that seems to be thrown in as filler or for shock value. It really just hits the point of being okay, we get it, move on. For the first two seasons there were sort of two different stories going on at once. The primary they'd take from the books, and then the secondary is usually something that has a brief mention in the books that is adapted to stretch over the season, but is rarely done well. During the last couple eps of the seasons I've found myself wondering why I bother. Have doubts about the third sesason. Heard that they plan on trying to weave three or four stories in that will conclude at different times with some setting up cliffhangers for the following season.
re Micallef- for the one clip it was a tilted stage, but for the wine cellar, there was more going on, and no way could it have been one go. His body was in the air for awhile, and then he was walking on the one wall one second, and walking on the floor normally the next. Actually had a bit of an Escher feel going since you never really knew what way was going to be up.
re D Gen- didn't actually hear it with the first clip, but heard the farting with the second one, and the second one seems to be an overall higher quality, especially the audio. Probably because it's shorter.
re sport- Only hookers we've got over here are the kind you pay for sex. Imagine the guys on the field would get their jock straps twisted if you called them anything like that. There may be a similar position that is called something else. Looked up what they're job is in rugby and couldn't understand half of what the terms were. We do have tight ends though.
re foreign lang news skit- just can't get into those. Get that the weather pesron is pretty much pointless since Spain seems to have only one type of weather through the whole country. The other ones are just kind of eh. Like jokes better if I can fully understand them, and only catching one or two words kind of blah.
re Not the Nine O Clock News- liked that one. Had to listen a second time to catch what Billy said. Would have liked it to be a longer blurb.
re Smith and Jones- could that be any more accurate. Don't think that was a tennis racquet, but everytime see a tennis match the players are always like this and can't seem to believe they're ever wrong.
re The Young Ones- game shows in general would be more interesting with contestants like this. Not as wierd anymore to see Hugh Laurie in British stuff. More enjoyable since a lot of it is sort of light hearted comedy stuff- or at least what I've come across is. Sure he's done more drama stuff too. First time I heard him talk with a British accent was really wierd though. Was on an interview online for some cop show he was in, hadn't known he was British, and instead of his House voice it was what most Americans think of as a snooty Brit accent. Big difference.
re Thank God You're Here- liked that. I don't know if the US ever had its own version. There was a bit on the US version of Whose Line is it Anyways that they'd do called Thank God You're Here, but don't remember ever seeing an actual show for just that.
re Norman Gunston...not saying that he can't be hard to understand, but merely that in that case it was straightforward. Here's how I tend to think of things...maybe Americans don't consider Australian vowels and English vowels to be the same but they don't really have a 3rd option on what the Australian vowel could be. Personally I do hear a lot of our vowels as sounding the same as the English ones, but maybe I'm wrong. I just know that what Americans think we say is completely off...Robin Williams is really bad with his impressions of our accent. Thought that Merryl Streep was generally spot on in Evil Angels, but she made a few blunders...later found out that the character that she played was originally from New Zealand, so maybe Streep didn't make any blunders (New Zealanders do some odd things with vowels). When I hear the promos for BBC radio over here, the English have a really tight "b" sound for "BBC"...the Australian vowel tends to be lower, I'd say...the English one is just a bit too much for me. Do find some Valley Girl type vowels cute, like "ew!"...you hear that in some Southern accents too...like "two" being pronounced "tew!".
As for Tim Allen...he'd heard of Vegemite, so he just thought he'd repeat it ad nauseum. The whole badgie/vegemite thing got old really quickly with me...as does Robin Williams "Giddoy moyte" stuff...his impressions are really excruciating to listen to.
re PS3...am considering getting it...there are specials here now, like $600 for a 250 Gb hard drive, a HD PVR and a game or two. My PVR is SD, so am looking for a upgrade...but the PS3 one can only record one programme at a time, not two. I used to have a N64, which was cartridge, so pretty sure you needed memory cards for that too...so, that isn't really a issue for me...although the memory for the PS2 is really small...PS3 is much better, but no backwards compatibility, which really sucks. re game prices...I buy so little it wouldn't really be an issue with me...pretty much all I play is Metal Gear and Pro Evolution Soccer...got Half Life, but I think that's all I own. Had the PS2 for years too.
re Blue Ray - well, the next thing should be downloadable content on the interweb...it could become redundant, but I'm no expert.
***** re A2A, saw the finale. Glad I have a PVR as I went back to a scene where Alex walked past a poster in the police station...the poster was dated 2008 and was about her in the future...how she was in coma and whatnot. Do you think that was an easter egg? I.e. not really meant to be taken literally, but just something cute for nerds to comment on? And at the end, when she is in the present, supposedly, it occurred to me later that the corpse being wheeled away might have been Sam...do you remember what the nurses said about it? Also wanted to rewind to what Gene said about the kind of people he attracts (he had Sam and Alex in mind) but I couldn't find it quickly so gave up. You remember?
re killing off interesting characters and writers...sort of related, watching Buffy I just found it odd how Cordy and Xan got together and were lovey dovey and then Cordy went back to type...I guessed that maybe that was fan driven...Cordy had her own "annoying" thing going and maybe the fans wanted her that way or couldn't see her with Xan...didn't really find her backflip believable in any case. Also re bad writing...watch Heroes, though I find it an inferior rip off to The 4400...sort of hoping it gets axed...not really finding it memorable...they had a whole war on terror type story arc and now they have a carnival arc and I don't even remember the carnie people...writers maybe just trying any old thing to keep it alive.
re Micallef wine cellar - definitely found it hard to get a fix on what they were doing...maybe they did rotate the set or something...which would explain why that was so for me...but I don't think it was anything to do with special effects on computer. He's got a hit show over here now, Talkin' About Your Generation. Heard it will be done in the US with Roseanne. Not really into the show...it's formulaic but Shaun can be funny. Doubt I'd watch the US version if it came here...Shaun was the only reason I thought I'd try it here. Shaun's generally been a cult figure here, so it's good to seem him be successful...just not my thing, unfortunately!
re Thank God You're Here...it's definitely an Australian concept...there was a US version of it, but it wasn't a hit...not sure if it's still on. US version not based on Whose Line...Australia would get a license fee from the US for them using it, or some such. Generally my favourite guys on Thank God are Shaun, Hamish, Akmal and Angus...oh, forgot about Bob Franklin...edit in this sketch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ayrCrgP-oo
re US sport and tight ends...yeah, that's definitely Pixie Ann Wheatley territory...do you have loose ends too? The single entendres would come thick and fast, I'm guessing! Rugby league isn't the main sport in my city/state, so I would probably be as lost as you re terminology and explanations.
re foreign language skit...what I find funny about it is the generic mocking of the Spanish language...especially the "tha tha tha tha" bits. Actually mentioned this to a Spanish lecturer and she laughed, so the stereotype amused her as well. Was a fan of The Fast Show...you could see the end coming when Johnny Depp guest starred on it...it had lost its edge by then.
Anyway, The Fast Show did do an English equivalent of those Spanish shows...I used to like these skits too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh3uvFRhK6E
Not really a fan of this English sketch show, but these segments always cracked me up...do the characters remind you of anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLB7HnIubcI
re Not the 9 O Clock News...um...so you had not trouble with what Pam was saying? That show often gets called dated now...I mean, it was a topical show and the topics are ancient history now, often, but some of it was really ahead of its time...been trying to track down a sketch for a reality based prank show...a man goes into his house and finds his family brutally murdered and he's distraught...it turns out that it was a prank...from memory, the murders were real, but it was part of a "gotcha!" kind of show, and the guy is really abashed about being "got". Prank/reality shows have really taken off in the last few years, so there but for grace of God...etc. that tennis sketch was actually from Not The 9 O Clock News...had Smith and Jones in it as well as lots of other well known comedians. The memory of McEnroe hangs around like a fart in a phone booth, so I'm sure the sketch will still be topical for years to come...even now you see ads here which parody Superbrat. He's more famous for his antics now than for his tennis.
re D Gen...they used to do hilarious quiz show sketches featuring school boy characters...can't find those, unfortunately.
re House...a great Brit com was Blackadder (give the first series a miss. Gets great once Ben Elton does the writing instead of the star. Elton is in that Young Ones student quiz show scene of last time). Laurie was in most of those series and he is excellent. He also had a sketch show called A Bit Of Fry And Laurie. Both are in that Young Ones scene.
I'll finish up with some more You Tubes...I was a big fan of a show here called Good News Week. It's conflicted with other programmes I watch recently but I've started finding it formulaic now...have planned on watching repeats when guests I like come on, but wouldn't you know it, the network didn't repeat the episodes that I actually wanted to watch! Anyway, always found this segment with a Supernatural star to be hilarious!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fabcHNjKwIo
I was browsing some more Colin Carpenter sketches...the following sketches really flesh out his character. It was later made into a sitcom...the ads were funny, but I don't think I ever watched them...at the time I don't think we made good sitcoms...sketch comedy a different matter though.
Colin Carpenter (Scrabble)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drm4W-CffMw
dating agency (with Sigrid Thornton)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rHlOsaCZhE
Prawn shop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=906YcLS-Si4
in court
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylnHNt7EX7o
Later.
P.S. not sure if the following Micallef clip re plane crash survivor is more complete than the one you posted...quality is good in any case:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh8l3VGzIXI
Bloody hell I didn't realized it had been that long! It was the close of the semester over here, so final papers and tests hit. Add to that I'm graduating, having to deal with grad schools applications, and having to look for an apartment, though depending on if I get into grad school, I may or may not be having a big move coming up. These past couple of weeks have been insane, and the next few don't look any better. I will do my best to keep up with these from now on. Just feel really terrible going this long and not replying. Whatever happens, life should settle back down into some kind of more managable routine no later than the begining of February.
re accents- looked up Robin Williams trying to find an example of him doing an Australian accent, not sure if I found one or not. It was an interview with a program I think called ROVE that dealt with a dvd of his coming out. Pretty sure he did his version of an Australian accent, but I wasn't sure if it was that or some kind of British. Then listening to his Scottish sounded a little questionable. It is really kind of interesting how you don't notice how bad imitations are until you get used to hearing some of the real things.
re game systems- The N64 for over here had the option to save on memory cards, but any of the games I played could be saved directly to the game cartridge. The one that has really ticked me off lately has been the PSP using memory cards. Carrying the system and games is bad enough, now you gotta waste space with memory sticks. Only good thing about the discs was that they were more likely to be backward compatibale, but this is probably the beginning of doing away with it entirely. It's like with the Nintendo handhelds, for several generations they had had backward compatibility from the past system or two, but with their latetest version of the DS they've done away with it.
re A2A- saw the S2 finale sometime in April I think it was, and don't remember a lot of little details from it. Remember the basic plot outline, and the ending, but not much else. I remember the card Molly gave her when she may have woken up showing up in 1982. As for whether to take it seriously, I don't think that is a question that can really be answered until the show is over. They've thrown so much stuff in that couuld be clues but could also be useless junk just to keep people guessing and wondering. With a show like this I don't think it becomes nerdy to comment on anything that shows up until after the show is over and a definative answer is given.
Several people have considered that the corpse at the end could have been Sam. If she actually woke up, my main problem with that is why would Sam be in London or Alex be in Manchester? Or both of them be somewhere other than those two cities? If she is still dreaming I suppose it could be her dreaming that it is Sam's body being wheeled out; some type of mental impression or something. The other problem with it being Sam's body, at the very begining of S1 ep 1, Sam's file is being read by Molly, and later there is a shot of the file with the word suicide stamped over it. Why would they have suicide stamped on it if he was still technically alive in a hospital? The nurses said something about the guy under the sheet being an angry man, but he was peaceful at the end or something to that effect. From what we were shown of Sam in 2006, he seemed focused on his job, but not really angry.
Don't remember the exact line with Gene, and I know it was discussed over on the A2A borads for a bit, but I think it was something like 'why do I attract all the crazies and liars.' It was delivered in Gene's office when Alex is trying to tell him that she is from the future, think she tried to warn him about the way the robbery was going to go down too. Think it she was suspended at that point too. Don't remember where it was in the episode exactly, but think it wasn't too long before the robbery scequence started.
re Micallef wine cellar- No, I didn't mean any sort of real special effect, like filming in front of a green screen type thing, but editing wise. Despite the number of takes it probably took to do that, it still is really smooth and you don't know what way is up until you see how his body reacts, and even then there is some of it it's questionable as to whether it's his abilities or something else.
With the US remake, haven't heard anything about it, but don't think I'd care for it. Roseanne has kind of run her course several years ago. She was on some late show not too long ago doing some stand up, wasn't that good.
re Thank God- liked Shaun's skit better. He seemed to think better on his feet, but there were also a couple bit with the last one where I didn't catch the references, some sort of patrol.
re US sports- no loose ends except for when the team starts playing terrible. Sure something could be done with line men. Don't know any other sport well enough to know if much fun could come out of them. Main one I can think of is dribbling in basketball. Bunches of fun to be had there.
re The Fast Show foreign language skits- checked out another couple with the Brit guy, and what the hell, is all I can come up with. Found it a little more entertaining cause I could understand some of the actual words. Still just kind of wierd.
re WWII pilots- it is like some messed up cross between Vicky from Little Britain and Smith and Jones. Was entertaining, though, some of the others with them weren't quite as good.
re Not the 9 Oclock News- I don't remember having any trouble, and I went back and listened to it again and had no problem. Actually I think it took me a minute to get the joke when Billy said sorry. It reminds me of some spoofy accents that sound like that, can't remember what on right now, maybe some Saturday Night Live stuff back in the 80s or 90s.
re Blackadder- a channel over here ran some eps from time to time, and I've had my eye on the discs for awhile. AmazonUK has the complete collection on sale right now, and with the exchange rate right now it would be about 30 US dollars, so I think I'm going to break down and get it. Best I can find it over here is about 80 US, and there are bits missing. From what I've seen of it, think I like Laurie better than Atkinson. I've come across some of Fry and Laurie's stuff a few times on Youtube. First saw this one around Halloween, and found it very entertaining, probably because I'm American
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u0RQkj3Tic
This other one just came across when I was rewatching the Halloween bit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsbPjE5oI_U&NR=1
re Good News Week- liked the clip. Like the Supernatural actor better when he isn't in Supernatural. Saw one ep of Supernatural and the way his character was killeds the show for me. I'm assuming that Good News Week is some kind of celebrity game show. As for repeats, that is always the way it seems to go - they play the eps you don't care about, and never run the others. When shows go into syndication over here, they only seem to buy some of the eps, and even then only seem to play about half of those and randomly throw in a different one. The best repeats I've seen over here has been on a cheap cable channel. They have a lot of their own shows, and the promote them and reshow them enough so that they can survive. It's especially great with this new show they started in October, White Collar. One of those shows that have a clues dropped along the way and a second thing always helps catch something new.
re Colin Carpenter- didn't care much for the Scrabble sketch, enjoyed the others. Loved the girl in the dating sketch 'I could get a whole PhD for this.' Could see Colin being a psych majors dream. Not quite sure, but with the prawn shop, is that supposed to be a play with the word porn, or am I reading something that isn't there or not understanding some cultural thing? Would love to see an actual court case with a witness like this. If the defendant had a good lawyer he could probably get the whole witness testimony thrown out since they were nothing but leading questions.
Again sorry about taking so long with this. With everything hitting at once I've been doing nothing but working on stuff for school.
Later.
Frackin' frack! Windows 7 froze on me, so have to restart this frickin' friggin' post! This is written over two days! Sorry if I left anything out...
Anyway, congrats on graduating...US system is different to Australia's, right? I mean, over here, you can start specialising right away, but over there you can't do that for a year, right?
As for the long delay, was wondering how long threads could get no replies before they got deleted by mods. Seems quiet board's threads are a bit safe...old posts can stay up for years, but popular boards have threads disappear quickly if no one replies.
re Robin William's 'Aussie' accent...don't really watch Rove...seen Robin years before Rove was on air, and his impression was awful. Merryl Streep does a very good job in Evil Angels, but seems to make a few howlers, unless she is a 100% accurate and the 'howlers' are merely the result of a mongrel accent with New Zealand roots or something. Read an interesting article on Australian's American accents here (for the comments on Travis and Ryan, and maybe LaPaglia):
http://tinyurl.com/y89kdup
re N64 - I used to have Goldeneye, which is apparently a classic. Found its FPS style a bit of a mind bend, so ditched it. Did find Half Life on PS2 easier in that regard. Used to have Hangtime and Pro Evo Soccer and F1 racing on N64 too. The F1 game made me motion sick! Must have been the stunningly realistic graphics! Actually, the graphics were loads better than that on PS1.
As for that 80s poster in 70s cop station, well, I think it could either be an in-joke (no one will notice it!), or it just confuses things more...perhaps suggesting that Alex dreamed the whole thing or something. It is hard to see a satisfactory ending to this story. Like I said, I initially loved the ending to UK LOM but on reflection it sucked. The US LOM had a sort of ok ending...stupid, but it wasn't as annoying as the UK version's ending. Speaking of which, I was really disappointed with the ending of Battlestar Galactica...man...the show's writers really took us for a ride with that one, I think.
re US version of Micallef...it's for his "Talkin' 'bout your generation" game show. Not a fave of mine, but it rates well over here. I was into his talk show which was on commercial tv over here, but it got axed before ten eps aired, I think. Liked his "High horse" segment...remember one where he had a go at warnings on peanut butter jars "May contain traces of nuts". Don't want to search for that one, but here's one...okay...found the nutty one...some of the other ones look good too (oh, I might check out his New Year's Eve special...could be fun):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FQI1VL5uSY
re WWII pilots skits...yeah, funny because it's grown men talking like Vicky Pollard. Told you that was the only good thing about that show! You must learn for yourself, I suppose! Col'n Carpenter was on The Comedy Company, which also had Kylie Mole, who was a woman playing a schoolgirl. She could be funny too, but nothing much online with her, and what I have seen doesn't seem very good...just the one with a famous guest...Kylie Minogue...and Australian soap star/pop star. Didn't want to post that up for you...quality control and all that.
re Blackadder...again, give the first series a miss...it actually becomes funny from the second series onwards, once Ben Elton does the writing, not the star, Rowan Atkinson. Elton was on that uni quiz scene from The Young Ones, as was Fry and Laurie, from memory.
re trick or treat skit by Laurie and Fry...the 'right' way was my way! Had kids doing that here in Australia and I pretty much said the right thing. Funnily enough, kids here are so stupid that they don't know that Halloween is not held on the same day here as over there!
Remembered some Blackadder I liked...apologies for the very poor quality first bit...it's a scene where Blackadder is creating a dictionary and gets Baldrick to define some words for him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXVVsCrbmkg
better quality, and from the same ep I think (features an actual historical character...the guy who created the first English dictionary...Hugh Laurie features...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yezUD8FU8qE
re Good News Week...yeah, local personalities and comedians feature. Wanted to see the ep with Micallef in it, but they didn't repeat that! re Supernatural...it's sort of a B show for me...part Buffy, part X Files, but lacking the brilliance of either. Interesting new twist to the series in any case.
re Col'n Carpenter and Scrabble...well, I thought it illustrated a lot about him...barely literate and a petty liar. Re pawn shop...yous have those...heard of "hock shops"? They're sort of like legal loan sharks...you give them something of value and they lend you money at an exorbitant rate. Good times for them nowadays. Col'n Carpenter was a sitcom for a while, but I never got into it...we were pretty bad at sitcoms in those days. More successful was "Mother and son", which had the guy who played Norman Gunston. Very popular here and abroad...got remade by lots of countries, I think. Back to Col'n...I was on the bus the other week and a radio station played a court scene with him...not sure if this is the one...I would love to find the sketch where the exchange the You Tube poster quotes takes place...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylnHNt7EX7o
Characters like Col'n and Vicky are fun...you want to see them in certain situations...like in court...pity there wasn't an English language You Tube of Vicky in court...I posted that German dubbed one.
Was a fan of Yes Minister, which morphed into Yes Prime Minister...I remember this scene where the Prime Minister (on the right) is talking to his top bureaucrat about who to appoint as the top Archbishop of the Church Of England...the other link is related to this bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBtDIVfhh8k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwkI6PZhm4A
Might mention two shows that I really got into...maybe I really started liking them after their first series...but Night Night, and The IT Crowd were a lot of fun in their second series. Nighty Night was sort of like a live action South Park at times, and I don't think I've laughed so hard as the IT Crowd ep where they go to the theatre or something.
P.S. am currently watching The Funny Business Of America...have to say, some of that stuff really holds up well, like Burns and Allen's Vaudeville schtick on tv...Vaudeville can be pretty low brow, but their stuff was still funny. Years ago I saw some special on American comedy but only a couple of sketches held up well...e.g. Eddie Murphy's Buck Wheat sketch...haven't been able to find the video for that...there's some audio of a routine, but I liked the tv sketch. Might have been from SNL. Not sure.
Speaking of physical comedy...well, we were weeks ago...finally found some gems I've been trying to find for ages...Jane Turner from Fast Forward and Kath & Kim...she's brilliant, I think...her gymnastics and dancing always had me in stitches. Here she is representing Australia at the Olympics in gymnastics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xlGGnsKD7M&NR=1
And here she demonstrates her dancing prowess...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ8y_FxgxAA
another one here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aElG1Mqncp0&NR=1
if you like that, here's another couple from the same show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=simatCov_SM&NR=1
Later.
So is WIndows 7 as bad as Vista? Had to occassionally use the Windows computers at school and was usually cursing the whole way. Ones that really pissed me off were the Macs that they loaded the Windows operating system on. It was like a sick joke. You thouhgt you were sitting down to a Mac and instead you get all the Windows problems.
Thanks in regards to graduation. Still hasn't set in that I'm not going back. I think there are some schools over here that do require a general year before specializing, but the one I went to didn't. The other thing is that the "in" thing in higher education is 'well-roundedness.' On average, each lecture course over here is worth 3 credits, meaning you attend class 3 times a week for an hour. To receive a bachelor's degree, a person needs 120 hours minimum, but the school I went to, I think it was 40 hours max could be put toward your area. Even within that area it can be a bit difficult to specialize. For example, I got my degree in history, and I prefer European history. Out of the 14 history courses I took, only 7 of them were related to European history. Out of those 7 only four could be considered in depth - the other three are considered survey courses. From what I understand of the American system vs other school systems in general, ours is very generalized and we don't get the depth that many overseas students get.
re old post deletion- there are some boards of favourite shows I check back on from time to time or an older show that I look up and find posts dating back several years. Found several from 2006; sure I could find older if I checked the right one.
re accents- Out of the shows listed in that article, the only one I'm familiar enough with off the top of my head is Ryan Kwanten in True Blood. Think I know who they're talking about with Anthony LaPaglia, but not sure. Probably the Australian actress I'm the most familiar with right now is Portia de Rossi, who has a main role on a show called Better Off Ted. There was someone over on that board complaining about her accent, but personally I think she does perfectly fine. I think people over here have gotten so used to hearing the dull monotone of Hollywood, that they forget that different regions have slightly different accents, and I see no problem having an actor not do that plain monotone, even if it isn't intentional.
re Goldeneye- not really sure what would make that a classic, but wasn't bad. Have never been great at FPSs, so lent it to a friend's brother and he got through most of it and unlocked a bunch of stuff for me. In general I do hate games that force that view. Much prefer seeing the whole character - easier to find the threat. Worst character control I've ever experienced, though, was the Laura Croft stuff. Mom got one of them for me that was for Dreamcast, and had a terrible time of it. Too much little crap had to deal with that just found it boring, and the sideways movement made no sense.
As for racing, still like Mario Kart 64. Was another one for N64, think it was called Waverunner that I liked, but other than that I've had a hard time finding a racer that I really enjoy. The Spyhunter series, while not racing against other cars, I've always had fun with.
re Battlestar- Are they done making up things entirely for the series, or are there still spinoffs/continuations coming? Thought I've seen a couple ads that claimed new things were coming, but not sure. Something about some creatures humans made to look/act/think like humans, and then the creatures rebel or something like that. Think the creature began with an s.
re High Horse- very enjoyable. There was one in particular I liked, but didn't get the link to. Might see later if I can find it. I always find stupid warnings funny for some reason. It's like the caution hot beverage on cups you get from places like McDonalds or Starbucks that contain coffee or hot chocolate. Think my absolute favourite are drug commercials, though. There are some sleep aid drugs that are advertised over here that I don't know why anyone would take them. Side effects include but are not limited to: sleep walking, driving, or eating, depression, thoughts of suicide, anger issues, emotional issues, or swelling of the throat or tongue that may result in death. There just has to be a better way to catch a night of rest without going a drug whose side effect is death.
re Vicky court clip- well I'm restuding german because there is a language requirement for a program I'm hoping to get into. Maybe, with probably more luck than skill, I'll be able to pick up what is being said.
re Halloween- what day is it held on? Have heard of other holidays being different, but Halloween was always one I had only heard October 31 for.
re Blackadder- the dictionary episode is pretty much the only ep I've seen in full. Don't know which series they were from, but have caught some parts of eps during WWI. Didn't think they were quite as good, but that may have been due because I only got to see parts of the eps.The station that shows it over here is all over the board is scheduling, and even trying to keep up with figuring out what is supposed to be on when isn't worth it. The only good thing about it is that it does show some non-American shows, mostly British ones. Found out that they are going to be running the UK LOM, but late at night or early in the morning. Was flipping through it the other day and found some Doctor Who eps with Tennant, sometime during the Rose arc.
Very random comment: oddly enough during that same week there were two shows over here that had Doctor Who references. On Jeporady it was a question asking along the lines of Matt Smith is taking over what role <insert some more show reference I don't remember> that has also been played by Tom Baker and <insert other actor I don't remember>. Only reason I was able to guess the answer was because the discussion on here about Tom Baker playing the part, otherwise would have had no idea what they were talking about.
The other odd Doctor Who reference was on the show I mentioned earlier in this post, Better Off Ted. Brief background, the show is about a company that invents and designs things, and the quirky people that work there. In this ep, a cleaning robot had been replaced with a janitor, and two of the scientist characters wanted to bring the robot back, so they went to the "robot graveyard" room, and in the background as they went sat a dalek. On a show made for a country where Doctor Who isn't a big deal, it just seemed kind of odd to have it back there, then as I sit and type this all sorts of hairbrain theories start floating around in my head as to why they'd stick a dalek in there. Couldn't be an easy prop to get in the States and I'm sure there are copyright/ownership/legal junk with the BBC to deal with.
re Col'n Carpenter/pawn shops- yeah got the pawn shop, but just wasn't sure. Couldn't make out the first few lines or the last couple, and then the skit was titled prawn shop, so didn't know if it was a different spelling or if there was something in those lines I was missing. In the beginning part of the skit I though Col'n was asking to buy something, but like I said couldn't really make it out. Liked the the court skit better. Came across that when looking at the other skits.
re Yes Minister- found these clips enjoyable, and as a history buff, knowing how long the sort of dual face that is put out and talking about in classes made this even more entertaining. Found the following one about newspapers funny while going through some of the others:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M&NR=1&feature=fvwp
re Vaudeville- If done well, vaudeville can be real fun. There was a theatre show went to with some family that was vaudeville, and don't remember the last time I laughed so hard in a theatre. They had this skit they did where one actress did a Julia Childes impersonation, still makes me laugh.
re physical comedy- Australians really like making fun of sports don't they? At least it is done well. With the dance people, when I've been flipping through channels, saw a couple of time contestants on the real reality dance shows act that way toward the judges. Too bad for them the judges don't cave the way these do, though bribes seem to have at least some effect.
Later.
re Windows 7...it's meant to be a big improvement over Vista...even before Windows 7 came out, businesses were getting XP or whatever it was called installed on laptops over Vista. XP was the os before Vista.
re graduation...a major university where I live has in the last few years gone down the US model re a generalist year before specialising. Can't say that I like that idea. What Euro history you like? I did first year history...Revolutions...French and US. Colonial history can be profoundly depressing!
re accents...don't tend to notice them that much...The United States Of Tara actress (she was in the 6th Sense) got a good review, but her accent sounds a bit fake to me. Found Nicole Kidman's accent in Too Die For to be too mannered. Like I said, Merryl Streep was generally very good in Evil Angels, but a few bits grated...like "A dingo's got my boyby". That seemed a real clanger to me...Robin Williams' territory! Maybe the actual woman had traces of New Zealand accent still in her, but it just seemed a bad American approximation of an Australian accent by Merryl in that case.
re Goldeneye etc...you've heard about First Person Shooters, right (FPS)? That's the perspective thing you were talking about. Metal Gear Solid is a third person shooter and I like those better too. Played Half Life on PS2 which is FPS, but I got the hang of the system. With Goldeneye, it just felt like I was spiralling out of an aeroplane without a parachute! Just had no feel for the system. re Tomb Raider...have heard about it's system...apparently very hard on people, with the camera angle and gripping...i.e. easy to fall to your doom and very few save points so you'd have to start again and take a while to get to where you died, if you got in far enough. The newer PS2 version was easier on you, from what I've heard. Might try that.
re Battlestar...they're making or have made a prequel series...stuff that led up to the first mini-series. Not sure I'll watch it...doubt if free to air tv here will show it. The network which showed the original series only has a sports related second channel, so they might not show it all. Also disappointing...they were screening Supernatural too, but have started playing movies now. Don't love the show, so hiring DVDs to see it not that appealing. Battlestar creature probably Cylons, I'd say.
re High horse and products/commercials...reminds me of a Comedy Company recurring sketch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeShQ25-z7M
re sleeping pills...yeah I've heard about some freaky side-effects for some too...sleep sex! From memory, a woman sleep walked and went to another apartment where her ex lived and had sleep sex with him. If memory serves.
re Halloween...it's a seasonal thing, or related to the moon or something....more importantly, it relates to harvests. We have opposing seasons, so it's just stupid to celebrate it on the same days as yous. Should have thrown that factoid at the kids trick or treating me...I didn't know about that then, so I just went with the "Does this look like America to you?" angle.
re Blackadder WWI eps...an American guy was saying he didn't like that series either, but I disagreed with him...found it very poignant in the end. Definitely give the first series a miss, but doesn't matter what order you see the series after that...so long as it's all the eps from the same series...you may or may not want to watch the WWI arc early.
re Daleks...tried finding a cartoon I'd heard about from The New Yorker, I think. It's about the Dalek's quest for world domination being thwarted by stairs! Anyway, the show must have known about it, because the recent Dr had a workaround on this...some kind of anti-gravity ability. When the companions were fleeing the Daleks they run up stairs and expected the chase to be over...no such luck. Cute, anyway.
Also on Daleks...remember Spike Milligan...gave some clips earlier...he wanted or did put on his tombstone "I told you I was ill!". Anyway, enjoy this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0n88tZQc4Q
re prawn shop - the vid poster probably just typed in what Col'n said...he said "prawn shop" instead of "pawn shop".
I liked that Yes Minister clip you gave...killer line by Bernard at the end! Bernard can be a tiresome character at times...he has some awful puns every episode or some such, from memory. Still remember the PM's line "I am their leader. I must follow them!". Sir Humphrey also has a catch-phrase to put the fear of God into politician...when he doesn't want them to do something, he will call their decision "Courageous". Guaranteed to nip an policy in the bud which he didn't think of himself! The Distinguished Gentleman, an Eddie Murphy film, was written by a writer of Yes Minister, I think. It's a political satire, but I don't think I liked it as much as the Yes Minister stuff.
Speaking of politics...reminded of a favourite recurring sketch from Little Britain...this from the USA version...one of at least two goodies...love the physical acting at the end by the wife (Tom Baker narrates)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBOEInQJHww
Seeing as you mentioned Starbucks...another Little Britain USA sketch...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe0gBsF6Tw8
That sketch reminded me of a line by an American comedian playing here "You guys need more Subways!".
re Vaudeville...yeah, it can be good, but often it can just be "My wife has no nose" type stuff.
re sports parody...I found the actual dancing or sports funny...the schmoozing wasn't essential to me...wish I found that Roy & H.G. olympics clip I was after...you didn't seem to have anything to say on the one I did post, a while back. I'll post up something relevant to you...Roy & H.G. discussing American food (would have loved to you that clip of them commentating to the Greco-Roman wrestling, with Barry White's "Can't get enough of your love" playing...very homo-erotic! The clip below is for a different series of theirs...the one for the Winter Olympic games)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU56qcLi8_w
Later.
re history- I have sort of two main interest areas. The first is British history, and the second is Europe in general from the fall of the Roman Empire through early Renaissance. I find US history to be very boring; don't really know why, just always found European more interesting.
We really don't get category history courses until the university level over here, and even then it is pretty linear. And out of the 13 years of school prior to university, I only had two years that were not US history, both of which weren't very good. One was supposed to go from the ancient civilizations through the middle ages - that course was really messed up because the teacher went nuts and we had substitutes for the last couple months - and the other one was three years later and just kind of hit some major European upheaveles. Can't say I find the revolutions all that depressing, but not really my cup of tea.
re video games- FPS is one of those things that I've come across in reference to different games, and know what it stood for, but never had a hard definition of what qualified a game as FPS or not, i.e. seeing your character vs not seeing your character. Like I mentioned before I had a hard time with Goldeneye in story mode, but usually did pretty well in multiplayer mode. That little radar thing is so much fun to abuse when your opponent has no clue!
re Comedy Company bastards skit- the university I was at must of imported their toliet paper - never tore correctly and also qualified as sandpaper.
re sleep sex- Maybe that really was a story and the show took it from that, but there was a bit on House where one of the clinic patients House had to treat kept coming back with wierd rashes, etc. In the end what was happening was she hadn't gotten any in a long time, her ex-husband lived downstairs in the same building and she was so horny she was going down and having sex with him in her sleep.
re Blackadder- finally got it (and a couple other series) and have been able to get through all of the eps. The characters were kind of backwards in the first series (Baldrick smarters, Blackadder not very bright) and I think that is part of what makes it a bad series. Liked series two and three - much better dynamic going on. Series four, the WWI series, tended to be more repetative and while appropriate, the ending felt harsh and unexpected. In retrospect, should have seen it coming since all the others ended with death. There was, I think it's supposed to be a movie, made later called Blackadder: Back and Forth that I really enjoyed.
re Daleks- saw that clip awhile ago. Found it entertaining and loved the bit about the curry, didn't understand the bit about what was wrong with the country. Most likey because I don't know when exactly that was made or what was going on in Britain at the time.
I think I saw that cartoon from the New Yorker you talked about several years ago. Think it was online not too long after I realized what Doctor Who was and that it could be entertaining.
re pawn/prawn shop- On the actual clip, there is a screen that looks like a title screen with music playing that says "prawn shop" and looks like an official title screen from the show, not a fan add on.
re Yes Minister- just the few clips I watched on Youtube gave the impression that it was the type to rely on similar gags a lot, but did enjoy the one you sent prior and that newspaper one. The Distinguished Gentleman is one of those films that tv stations over here play a lot on weekend mornings or when they're trying to fill time. There is one Eddie Murphy did with Dan Akroyd maybe, that I confuse with the Distinguished Gentleman. There were some he did that were very similar to one another that I have a hard time keeping straight.
re senator clip- if the guy had just sounded a little more severe you'd never know this was a joke. Do love the wife, wish the real wives would look this way instead of playing the politcial bs. Think majority of people would have more appreciation and respect for politicians if they just accepted the fact that they are real people, and that many of their number are just as sleazy as regualr people.
re Starbucks- that is a fairly accurate depiction of what must be their business plan. University I went to there was a Starbucks on campus, and then about a block north and a block west there was another Starbucks. While not officially on campus, it was across the street from a bunch of our buildings. The one on campus was always crowded too. You mention the Subways, we had a bunch of those on campus too. Think we had five or so, but one may have been torn down when they started renovations and don't know if will be opened again.
re Roy and H.G.- when you did post that other one, watched some others, and this was one of the ones I watched. Don't agree with what they say about it al tastes the same, but their other comments are accurate. The guy they interviewed at the beginning was nuts "American food tastes like freedom." I hope that that interview was done when everyone was one their "Freedom food" kick. Names changed from French Fries to 'Freedom Fries,' French Toast became 'Freedom Toast,' French Bread went to Freedom Bread. It was one of the dumbest things around.
Sadly we now have a show over here called Man vs Food that is all about one guy going around the country and trying to finish the challenge the restaurant has. Each challenge is always about consuming a sicking amount of food is a certain amount of time. I think it is in its thrid season. Don't know how anyone could sit and watch it. Makes me sick just watching it.
The wrestling one sounds like it would be hilarious.
Later.
re US history being boring...I'm pretty sure most Australians find Australian history boring, but I am surprised that an American finds American history boring...you'll be going to a gulag now, won't you? When I did American Revolution which was a semester long subject, I just say I found the part dealing with the natives profoundly depressing.
You had a teacher go nuts? What happened? When I did history in high school, it was dates and stuff. Interesting topics like Greek and Italian history, but all date based...shopping list kind of stuff.
re FPS...Half Life is the classic FPS...you're looking out of the character's eyes. If you see your character, it's not FPS. Not really that knowledgeable on a lot of the lingo, but I have picked up on terms like "teabagging"! (You don't want to know what that means!). Playing Metal Gear Solid games, it is cool knowing where your adversaries are looking, via your radar...it's just not very realistic though! You can disengage that feature if you like though.
re House and sleep sex...I watch that show...returns on Sunday night. Maybe I was thinking of that ep! They must have got that idea from the news though, you'd think. One doctor was telling me that the show raids medical journals for stories.
re Blackadder...I gave up on the first series after 2 eps maybe. Like I said, it became a great show once Ben Elton started writing for it and not Atkinson, who played Blackadder. I've enjoyed some of Robinson's docus...he played Baldrick. Forgotten about any deaths in the series. Like I said re Forth, I found it very poignant...don't remember earlier series giving me that feeling. What other shows did you buy?
re Daleks and Spike...must have missed any racial overtones. In Australia that series was played as short segment on weekdays. Not sure how it differed from the UK version...identical perhaps. As a kid, I used to love watching The Goodies. It got played right before Dr Who here. In the UK, it was a prime time show...9pm or something.
re Prawn shop...video has a title and some squeaky music...it looks like a fan add on to me. I like linking to music videos and I really hate guys who 'tag' the videos with their own inane visuals and sounds before the video start. Try and avoid those now. The show didn't introduce sketches with titles, they just went from one sketch to another.
re Yes Minister...black haired civil servant often had dumb puns. Sir Humphrey often had these set pieces of gobbledygook which I wasn't always keen on...be easier going now, with PVRs that you can rewind...but his long windedness wasn't always funny...just annoying at times. There is a new satirical movie out now called In The Loop. Has Sopranos' dad in it. Maybe British writer for it. Want to check it out, but it's in indie cinemas...will have to go out of my way to see it. But will do so.
re senator clip - to me, I can't help thinking of those evangelist frauds in the US...Swaggart, Bakker et al. The other sketch from the US show was funny too...maybe based on a real life case in the US at the time...re guy in toilet...what the heck...vid here (not sure if it is complete, and it's a bit loud too):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eseRc2apHB4
re Subways...it's crazy...same with 7/11 too...you get outlets literally across the road from one another...like 20 meters apart. Franchisees must love that!
re Roy & H.G....Roy is really funny...brilliant answer to HG's "What does freedom taste like?"..."Fatty and salty". The American interviewed sounded a bit like a government plant...spouting propanda! I'm sure you would have gotten guys like that in Russia, if a Western journalist was looking for the opinion of 'the man on the street'...but they'd be a government stooge. Seems like that in the US you don't need stooges...everyone is a volunteer!
If I watch Letterman, occasionally I can hear a bit of Roy in him...not sure if they are on the same wavelength, or one of them has picked up stuff from the other. Roy writes his own material but Letterman has a team of writers, so not sure re that. Wish I could find their gymnastic clips where they commentate that the female gymnast is doing the "I'm a princess!" move. That was funny too.
Back to food...US seems crazy, with its supersized portions. We don't get that here. Maybe it's been imported here now though. Really wasteful...if you eat a kilo of steak, you get it free. Most people can't eat it and so it will go to waste.
Do find American food to be bland...I've often commented to people that Pizza Hut pizzas taste like cardboard. They used to and maybe still have a $5 all you can eat deal...probably more expensive now though. Not a good proposition for me. A 5 cent all you can eat broccoli deal would be no less unappetising. Digital tv has Leno, and I saw one ep where Dominoes pizza, I think was mentioned. They conceded that their pizzas tasted like cardboard. Not sure if that's the same chain as here, but I find Pizza Hut to be the worst. When I first went to the big smoke, I tried McDonalds. Actually used to like Big Macs. But I really find them unappetising now...2 for 1 offers are straight in the bin for me. Tastes like cardboard...soggy...with mayo. Maybe oppression would taste better?
P.S. Roy and H.G. used to have a show called "Club buggery". Could they call a show that in the US?
Later. Sorry about the lack of copious You Tubes.
re American history- most Americans find all history boring, not just our own. Usually when I tell someone I'm a history major, the typical response goes something like: 'I could never do that. It's so boring. And all those dates and facts you have to remember!' Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because for any field you've got to remember a whole bunch of what seem random and unconnected to anyone unknowledgable in the field, yet history always gets that stigma over here. I think 8th grade was the last time I had a 'shopping list' type history course. In 9th and 10th grade we had to know some dates to go with what we were dealing with, but the ideas of the time were becoming more necessary. By the beginning of 11th, it was all having to do essays that argued a question one way or another. Something along the lines of: Discuss the factors that helped Hitler rise to power in 20th century Germany, or Discuss events that occured between WWI and WWII that were factors in leading to WWII.
Don't know if you've heard of it, but there is a programme called the International Baccalaureate Programme that started in Switzerland and has spread around the world. It's a type of honors diploma programme where you do two years of high level course work and then take a bunch of tests in different areas to try and get the diploma. It isn't very well known over here, but supposedly it is more well known internationally. I went through that in high school, so our course work and the way the material was taught was different than from what other students were doing and little just date memorization.
As for the American Revolution, when it is taught over here below college level, the natives aren't talked about a whole lot. Teachers tend to focus on the British/American aspect of things. Unless the Indians were involved in some major battle or helped sway an outcome, they're barely mentioned. Took a course about a year ago that dealt with Indians in America that started from as early as they can start putting dates together and finished right around the American Revolution. Have to say didn't find it very interesting. Only history course I took at the University level I ever had real trouble staying awake in.
re crazy teacher- in 7th grade I had a history teacher that was on some type of medication, and what I heard was that they were either changing the drug cocktail he was on or he was having trouble getting some of the medication. During his first hour class he just started acting weird, and then when it was time to change classes, he kept that class in there. The way the craziness manifested had something to do with a book they were reading. Didn't have to read the book so never really figured out what the whole thing was about. But two groups of students wound up in the room, and he eventually left the room and went down to the office where some of the administrators helped him. At one point he gave his car keys and his wallet to a student. Didn't come back for the rest of the year, but heard that he was teaching at a different school the following year.
re House- well at least some of their stuff is based in reality then. Some of it just sounds nuts, and since most people don't have a clue about medical stuff it would be very easy to ust start making stuff up and most of the audience wouldn't know the difference. Them raiding medical journals makes it at least look like they care.
re other shows bought- Blackpool and Viva Blackpool, didn't want Viva Blackpool, but it was cheaper to buy the two together than buying Blackpool on its own. It has David Morrissey (sp?) and David Tennant in it. Not the greatest thing in the world, but it was interesting and different. I think it offically qualifies as a musical crime drama. Like I said, not the greatest, but I found it enjoyable.
I also got Takin' Over the Asylum, another one with David Tennant, but from his younger days. Pathetically still haven't gotten a chance to sit and watch that one.
Finally I picked up The Invention of Lying from a store here. Again, not the greatest thing, and wished I had gotten to see it in theatres so I didn't have to buy it, but glad I saw it. It is by the co-creator of the UK version of The Office, Ricky Gervais, and he also stars. It is a comedy that takes a lot of shots at religion.
re Yes Minister- There have been a couple of Youtube clips where Humphrey gets annoying. Came across this clip recently on Youtube, comparing an Obama speech with one of Humphrey's. Some word changes, but identical points.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72zj8GQvhRk
As for the Little Britain USA senator clip, wouldn't surprise me if that were from a real story.
re 7/11- depends on what part of the country you're in. Over here there are a bunch in the south, but don't see many in other areas of the country.
re Roy ad H.G. interviewee- I'm guessing this was during the Salt Lake Olympic games, which were in 2002. Definately in the window of "freedom" foods. Like you said, we didn't need government stooges for that one, people were readily volunteering. In general, the news doesn't have to go very far to find someone to get to say what they want. We have plenty of idiots over here willing to make fools of themselves.
re American food- Dominoes has been running a campaign lately saying they listened to the critiques and changed their pizza to try and make it better. Haven't had a Dominoes for awhile. Chain called Papa Johns that is the best out of the big chains to me. Pizza Hut is pretty bad. Went to a birthday party at Pizza Hut several years ago and we had a grease dripping contest to see who could get the most grease off of their silce. I had one or two where I was holding it up, just had the slice curled so could hold it better, and the grease was streaming off of it for at least 30 seconds. One solid flow of grease, and then it dripped for I don't know how long. Very gross. Tried that think about a year ago and it wasn't as bad, but it was a different restaurant, so maybe it was just a better one.
The only fast food place I eat burgers is Sonic. At the others I stick with the chicken nuggets. I don't like a lot of stuff on my burgers so it's just easier to avoid them all together. McD's just brought out over here a Big Mac wrap- supposedly same as Big Mac, just in a soft tortilla shell instead of a bun. Mom said it didn't taste very good. As for food over kills, was at a McD's the other day and noticed that they have started carrying a 50pc nugget box. 20pc I can understand, but can't really imagine the circumstances where anyone would need a 50pc.
With oppression, at least you could come up with viable excuses for bad food, taste and health wise. And the good stuff would taste all the better.
re Club Buggery- I don't know if you could get away with that over here or not. On the one hand there probably aren't many people that know what buggery means, so they have that going for them. Then, there are enough offensive things on TV that titles can sometime skate by being crude if the content isn't. Third, it would probaby depend on the channel. Like if it were on a channel like HBO (responsible for shows like True Blood, the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, etc) no one could probably stop them, whereas on the free stations there would be a bigger issue. Put it this way, with stations such as MTV running shows like 'Teen Mom' that follows a bunch of teenagers that have gotten pregnant and shows consequently what their lives are like, I have less problems with a show called Club Buggery.
Later.
(edit in: check your PM. Also, I mentioned Pete & Dud before...they were mentioned on the radio today (by Shaun Micallef, who is doing some of their sketches at the Comedy Festival here, soon) which made searching for something I was after easier...two characters that they played...couldn't find the exact sketch that I wanted, but this is sort of the gist - actually, another sketch first...reminded of it today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh9MJMOMufY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTifRi3qDkU)
re own history boring...no, I'm sure Australia's history is MORE boring than America's history. Perhaps only New Zealand's history is more boring. But maybe there is something to be said for having an uneventful history. Expat Australian Clive James, on his British show showed a clip of a New Zealand news story...it was funny because it was far from being Earth shattering! You know, something like "Old lady has purse stolen"...as a lead item!
re I.B...yeah, I've heard of that. Popular with diplomats' children or something. We have schools which teach it here, I think. Your meant to study sciences in that right? I mean, you can't pike doing some serious subjects? Bit of everything?
Back to history, I didn't realise that Australia was involved in slavery in a small way...practice called "black birding" or something. Not systematic like England and the US used to have...more a cottage industry.
re crazy teacher...pity you can't expand on your comment that: "The way the craziness manifested had something to do with a book they were reading". Sounds sort of interesting...in a vague way!
re House...I'm a fan of the show...find it funnier that what I would imagine so called US sitcoms would be like. With that show, I suppose it must seem like every week an interesting case arrives...I'm sure that there are loads of interesting cases, but they are probably gleaned from many decades of practice.
You mentioned Blackadder, I think...if I haven't already said this...I watched maybe the first or second ep of the first series, after seeing the later series first. Just found it so unfunny I didn't bother watching any more. You actually made it through the entire first series? How? If I'd seen the first series first, I doubt I would have bothered seeing the later, classic series.
Not sure if I've heard of "Blackpool and Viva Blackpool". It's probably been on here but I didn't watch it. As far as British dramas go, I was a fan of the "Jonathon Creek" series. It's about a magician's assistant who solves crimes in his spare time. Found it a fun series to watch. Series aren't that long...short spells, like...Mentioned before, at least one of these Brit coms..."Nighty night" and "The IT crowd". Second series of each hilarious. Both run in short bursts...like six episodes a series or something. If I didn't find their first series hilarious, I obviously stuck with them. Nighty Night just went nuclear in the second series...very South Park like, re themes covered. IT Crowd has very hammy acting, but it works for me...not a million miles from Blackadder style...I loved Queen Elisabeth in that show. How about you? Hugh Laurie was also funny in that. Check out Father Ted too. Hilarious series. Like with many hilarious serious on ABC TV here, I came into it late. Brilliantly funny...about Catholic priests...no, it's funnier than it sounds!
Also a big fan of the short kids show "Shaun the sheep". Laugh out loud funny. No words, just claymation type of physical comedy.
re Invention Of Lying...saw that. Not bad. His earlier movie, Ghost Town, wasn't bad either. Liked his original version of The Office though.
re Pizza Hut etc...maybe you guys do food differently to us. Saw Supersize Me years ago. Australia never had those absurd options you get in the US...like a bun on top of and beneath a cow...a barrel full of chips, and 44 gallon drum of diet coke!
re Club Buggery...just a silly name for a show...no actual buggery! Would love it if someone uploaded a video of Ian Turpie singing Nirvana's "Smells like teen spirit". Ian Turpie was a regular on that show...he used to host The Price Is Right here, and dated Olivia Newton John in the 60s. Show a while back, so not sure if anyone tech savvy enough to upload it from video cassette.
Accidentally discovered that new eps of Vampire Diaries were on. Like a soap opera now...Elena's dad it seems, going via the second episode, is a vampire. Not very good at keeping tabs on people in show...lots of characters now...hopefully I can remember which ones are the vampires etc.
Back to Ian Turpie...The Late Show used to have a running gag about a dumb guy booking the wrong people to play songs...in the video below, Joan Kirner is booked to play "I love rock'n'roll" instead of Joan Jett. Kirner was like Arnie...she was the premier of Victoria, a state in Australia...probably after she lost the election and quit politics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGyD2hn7d3Y
Found another one...instead of getting Hewie Lewis to sing "Hip to be square" they got Hayley Lewis, an Australian swimmer, to sing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJgOA5Qj310
Probably not funny for an outsider...you had to be there...it was funny how stupid the act booker was.
re one leg short- funny clip. Do you know if that was all to the sketch or was it cut short? Found a longer one posted by the same person, but it cut at exactly the same spot. Just seems like there should have been more.
re derek and clive- was getting bored with the beginning of the clip, but glad listened to the whole thing. The end makes it worth it. It's kind of long, but liked the following one, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DkuXBsHytE&NR=1
re uneventful news- would love to have news like that. Get so sick of the news being nothing but a list of shootings, fires, losing houses, etc. Most of the time I can't stand watching the news because of how depressing it is, and it is the same day in and day out. Would love to live in an area where the lead item is a stolen purse.
re IB- it is a bit of everything, so it isn't really sceince based, at least our programme wasn't. Ours was just getting started when I went through it, so some of the kids were able to get some more serious and in-depth work done with some teachers in their preferred area.
re crazy teacher- I think the book was called 'The Wave' or something like that. If I remember right, it's one of those books that pretty much doesn't have an audience outside of an educational setting. You know like the ones they make you read is school, but no one is actually interested in it, and if you tried to find it yourself it would be probably a nationwide hunt.
re Blackadder- I wanted to see all of the Blackadder stuff, so just sat through it. I kept hoping it was going to get better since the rest of Blackadder was decent, so didn't think the whole thing could be bad until I sat through it. The most irritating was that there were situations in that first series that could have been funnier, and they just didn't carry enough through with it and focused on other aspects instead. Also, my dog was sick and needed someone around most of the time and I was the only one that could do it at the time, so watching Blackadder gave something to do in between the times the dog needed help.
Yes, loved Queen Elizabeth. First time I had seen her portrayed in such a light, and found it very entertaining. Very enjoyable how she could just throw around do this or I'll kill you so non-chalantly one second and the next be worried over one of them.
re Shaun the sheep- one of the kid networks overhere has rights to it. Don't know if it is Disney or Nickelodeon, but they've shown a couple of the shorts. Saw a DVD at the store the other day with eps too. Looks like the same guys that do Wallace and Gromit, but I like Shaun better from what I've seen.
re food- thought we were getting back to sane portion sizes over here, i.e. fry sizes and some drink sizes were shrinking, but saw at a McDonalds the other day the option to order a 50 pc McNugget. I like their nuggets, but that enough to last for a couple of days; don't know how anyone could do it in one sitting.
re Vamp Diaries- there are a lot of secondary plot floating around in it, and the more I watch it the lower my opinion of it gets. Wish they could just do a show over here that has one main plot and they follow it through without all the side stories that are there just so the bit players have more to do. Know they do it so that they can extend the show longer, but it gets old. The last couple eps I saw were okay, but they also had one story they were really focusing on. Also, for some reason the show keeps taking short hiatuses - it will have new eps for a couple weeks, then a bunch of reruns for 4-6 weeks, and then new eps, and that has been the pattern since the show started. Very weird for a US show.
re wrong booking- at least the people were game to go along with it. Funny to see a politician doing the rock 'n roll in the leather and all, even if I don't know who she is. While the swimmer had the better voice, think I liked Kirner better.
Later.
re Pete and Dud sketch...it's short...punch line is the bit about him not having anything against his right leg, from memory.EDIT IN: actually, I found another clip...it has more at the start, I think ("One leg too few"):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty68LPKRQQQ
In a recent piece in The Age, Shaun Micallef (I've posted his You Tubes in this thread before) nominated this sketch as the greatest of all time. He also mentions Tony Martin thinking the same...a while back I posted Martin's article in The Age about great Brit comedies that haven't screened in Australia or got bad treatment. Martin has appeared on The Late Show...not sure if I've posted You Tubes from there in this thread. The clip above shows Dr.Jonathon Miller. The following point relates to a comment later in this post...as a child I was shocked to see Miller, I think, do an autopsy on his series "The body in question". It also bugs me that The Age's tv liftout often assailed me with pictures from a programme on SBS TV over here which was about autopsies...Dr somethingorother on that...German guy...so, if these comments seem a bit random...they apply to a later point here.
Had a listen to your You Tube...funny about what the doctor recommended for migraine!
re news items...I'm really getting annoyed with Murdoch's newspapers...for ages they've been running shocking pictures which more rightly belong in medical journals. They just show the pictures...no real story to go with it. Really hate being affronted by that kind of stuff.
re IB...it's just my understanding that there are many things you have to do...you can't shirk science like you can in normal high school.
re Blackadder...the original starts out as a snivelling whatsit. Once Ben Elton starts writing, he becomes this over the top bully, which is why he's so funny, from my point of view. Rowan Atkinson didn't really carry much laughs early on, and the other characters weren't really engaging. Like Queen Elizabeth later and whoever Hugh Laurie played from later, I think...some prince, I think.
re Shaun The Sheep - Just Wikid it. It recently ended here but I wondered what happened to 2008...doesn't look like they made it that year. Station here didn't show them in sequence, which doesn't matter any way. The last repeat was Shaun falling in love...which seemed a nice way to end it...but it looks like more eps are on the way.
re Vamp Diaries...I thought it was pulled here but it looks like you are on break over there? Since Australians download a lot, networks are rushing new shows in. Can't really say I understand why US shows take breaks...doesn't happen here for our shows. Think I'm still on top of the relationships...assuming the break doesn't throw me. Found the Terminator tv series a bit hard to follow, plot twist wise, but it got pulled before digital tv came in and has resurfaced on digtial now. Found it really annoying the female terminator saying she loved the teen boy...really stupid, unless you view it as a ploy to stop him killing her. Even worse is the whole terminator pondering Jesus angle. Seems a fixation with American tv, getting all religulous. Been axed, but that doesn't really bother me much. EDIT IN: Even worse, perhaps, is Heroes...they seem to jump from one story arc to another...one particular story seems to be major then it just disappears without a trace. Trying to remember now if I'd ever seen that Irish circus owner on the show before now...he's the major story arc now. Where did that come from?
I was watching Family Guy the other week and there was a joke about BBC radio once the dad got his ham radio. Here's audio of that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYYOko9_pWs
The last part reminded me of an old Australian satirical programme called "The Gillies Report" (the clip below is long because the poster has stuck together sketches on this...you don't have to watch it all! Maybe the short bit from 2:15 would suffice):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X454D3Fzwso
Max Gillies basically did impressions of world leaders of the time...if you don't know people like Ronald Reagan etc, it might pay to give these a miss:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26D0gA0qTD4
Would have liked to find one of his impressions of state leader of the time Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen...a Reagan-ish type intellect there. Hmmm...not sure if I'm getting confused, but Fast Forward had a guy called Gerry Connolly who impersonated him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l2doxjnn3Y
Couldn't find any actual clips of Sir Joh mixing his metaphors on the news, like he was well known for.
re Peter and Dud- found that longer one, or one cut almost exactly like it, when watching the one you posted. Still wish all of the vids posted for that skit wouldn't seem like they've cut part of it off.
re news- only think I check in newspapers are the weekly store ads, and check on the few jobs still advertising in the paper. Most of the pics in papers over here are very tame - worst I've ever seen is a sheet covered corpse on a gurney.
(Funny you should mention Murdoch. I've been looking at schools on line again because I didn't get into my first choice. The site I use to search worldwide search of schools for the programme you've put in. One of the ones that came back had a programme that sounded great and exactly what I wanted to study, and was all excited because it said Murdoch, WA for location. WA here is an abbreviation for Washington state, so I naturally assumed that it was in Washington. Was very sad to see that it was actually a school in Australia.)
re IB- You have to take a science, but not all of them. I did biology cause it was my stronger suit, but I didn't have to take chemistry or physics. First year of high school had to take an 'Integrated' science course that had a bit of all three, but luckily the teacher was not strong in physics and chem, so not a whole lot of it there either. Know some kids that did the lower level science in the programme, so they only took three years of science. Think the school required three years anyway, even if you weren't in IB.
re Blackadder's Elizabeth- went and saw Disney's new Alice and Wonderland with my mom a bit ago, and the portrayl of the Red Queen was very reminicent of Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder. Would have sworn it was the same person everything was just so similar. It isn't, but it wouldn't surprise me if the actress that did play the part had inspiration from Blackadder.
re Shaun- skipping a year might have just been a time issue. Takes forever to make those things, though with the introduction of digital cameras it is a bit easier, but still awfully time consuming.
re Vamp Diaries- yes the breaks are getting really annoying. Don't know why they can't just film and show a full season. Prior to 2009, the only time I had seen shows take breaks in the middle of a season was when a special event was on, ie olympics, other major sporting event, something political, etc. Now I think it has become more regular, though don't know why. Vamp Diaries is terrible, though they have new eps that started last week. Don't understand why they went the way they did with the Katherine angle. Guess it keeps things open for later. Don't usually get to see the very beginning of the eps, and don't care enough to watch it online later, at least not yet, so maybe there was something in the beginning of an ep that I missed, but from the rest I've seen, not likely. The eps also seem very long to me. I'm looking for the ep to be over when they are only halfway through. Think there are just too many relationships going on for me to care, especially with the Elena's brother and aunt - just couldn't care less about what happens to them. Can't say I'm that surprised though, as it plays into the target audience and is typical for that network.
The other shows that I can think of are on two different networks, but are owned by the same company. And the one show I'm thinking of was in it's first year, so that may have something to do with it. I think the network wasn't sure how it would catch on, and didn't want to buy into it too quickly as it is more light hearted than pretty much any other cop show on tv, and then I think the Olympics got in the way for a week. So I suppose that show has an excuse. The other show is a type of reality (hate to use that term because of the connotation it brings with it, but don't know what else the show would be classified as) that I really just started watching this year, and I think that they split their filming schedule for family reasons. From what I've seen so far they fill in their time off with a sister show, so not much difference - different locations and people, but same basic thing.
Never watched even a few minutes of Heros, so no clue what's going on there. Back to the original why take random breaks, seems to be a new phenomena in American tv, though given the last time I really followed any non-imported or any prime time show was sometime around 2003/2004, really couldn't tell you. Maybe it is better supposed to be better advertising since on random breaks usually are reruns, but another show. Keep people glued to the tv with more new stuff instead of questionable rerun audiences. Personally I prefer reruns if I'm really into a show - gives me another look at the ep for clues etc to what is going on after getting the basic story progress from the ep. And there are just some shows I like the characters enough that don't mind rewatching.
re clips- dear god! that last clip sounded like some recent news casts over here. If only those were satire. Sure will continue to hear more as elections get closer with the two sides at each others' throats.
Listening to the Gillies Report reminded me of when I was first starting to watch international soccer and trying to figure out what some of the announcers were talking about. Still not the most knowledgeable, but can follow the handful of games on over here without getting completely lost. On the upside, one of the sport stations has promised to show World Cup games. Hopefully more than just the US getting its butt kicked. Oddly I enjoy watching matches from other places in the world, but find US games very dull - pace just seems much slower, and the announcers never seem very interested.
Haven't seen a whole lot of Regan speeches and not very familiar with his style, so that clip didn't do much for me. I have a techno song off of a soundtrack that mixes in clips of Regan and his wife talking to make it sound like they are supporting drug use, and that is pretty much the only place I've really heard him speaking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZGmBM1lrMM
Guessing that is the official musice vid.
And finally, the third series of Ashes to Ashes started April 2, so better or worse the conclusion is in sight! First ep was good, hopefully the rest of the eps will keep it up.
re skit...Fast Forward had short skits too, but they had a device whereby there would be static to mark the end of the skit, as if someone had changed channels. Pete & Dud probably didn't have such markers. Posted up some Fast Forward skits earlier here. Just by the by, many of Pete and Dud's episodes no longer exist...they were wiped to record something else. Same thing happened to shows like Doctor Who. Of course, no recording of anything featuring the queen ever got wiped! Think some episodes of Doctor Who may have been recovered in Australia...a case of thanking 'illegal' copiers! Sucks anyway that such cultural history could disappear like that.
re news etc...well, my broadsheet's tv guide had pictures of an autopsy scene. It really sucks that they'd print something as confronting as that in a family section of their paper. re tame news pics in the US...uncensored pics during the Vietnam war swung public opinion in the US against the war...so you can be sure the government and military would never want that to happen again. Middle East gets uncensored video of civilian targets hit by the US...so if you're ever wondering "Why do they hate us?"...that would be the reason...you get two different world views based on the info available to each of you.
re Murdoch Uni...we've got a Bond Uni too... Alan Bond was a 'colourful' entrepreneur...the kind who gave that word a bad name. Got gaol time. Reminds me...W.Bush said that the French could do with a word like "entrepreneur". He doesn't strike me as the kind to be joking when he says that!
re IB and uni...a prestigious uni is going down the US route of generalist degrees before you can do vocationally orientated stuff. Wouldn't really want that system here...why waste a year or so not studying towards something? re IB...I thought you had to do more 'hard' sciences etc. Biology is a soft option in a way...in normal high school, you can pike it and do biology and general maths...but I thought you'd have to at least do one hard maths and one hard science subject, like physics or chemistry. So, not sure how 'good' it is that your teacher wasn't strong in it! Bad thing, no? I've seen a bad situation here for year 11/12 students...a combined class...one teacher multi-tasking between years in one room. That's pretty bad.
Haven't seen or read Alice In Wonderland...QE in Blackadder seems more dangerous to me...with AIW queen, you'd always be on edge, I suppose...but QE seems like someone who can put you off your guard.
re Shaun the sheep...yeah, Wiki has 1st series as 2007 and 2nd as 2009. Least I know I wasn't shortchanged by network here.
re Vamp Diaries...don't hate it...still watching. It's okay. You got me onto it! Was surprised with this week's ep...had product placement...a certain Murdoch owned search engine got named and used! If they keep doing that, it would be crass...people might draw the line at THAT not being believable!
re re-runs...not into those. Bugs me when networks here smuggle them into a new run series. Can't really see how that would work for advertisers either...they'd be getting the suckered viewers, and such viewers may be pissed off about the smuggled repeat. As for new shows being screened there...that's pretty choppy changey...if they move it to a permanent slot, viewers may not find it. Don't think we do that here, but I'm not loyal to the commercial networks...hate the way that they half screen the credits or run banner ads during programmes. You get that? I always mute, so if others do, the self-promotion ads are wasted.
re US games...I find US sports really boring too...it's mostly the coach talking to his players. Seems time outs are interrupted by play! Don't even get me started on US city based teams calling themselves "world champions"...and the rest of the world wasn't even invited! Maybe Canada counts as the rest of the world over there?
re Reagan drug song...I really liked this Australian one...think that the lyrics are generally legit, but the person you see is fake...based on Pauline Hanson, a sort of redneck politician here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDwsBv-jjQU
Just discovered another song by this act...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPlhz2iX_0k
re A2A...wonder when it will show here. Saw the end of the last Simms episode...probably said this before, but looking at it, it makes me think:
1) they live in an alternative world...Annie says "stay with us forever"...implies a certain choice...eternal life, or returning to the 'real world'...to die?...but if he does return and dies...does that mean he comes back to Annie or not? Hmmm!
2) Sam is dying and he returns to that place in his mind (but you get him hearing the doctor working on him in Gene's car)...but I find this really stupid...he's jumped off a skyscraper, and he still has a mind to hallucinate with? Yuh.
P.S. back to that old topic of parodies of the Spanish accent...stumbled across this today...editing it in now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRuPBTNiTys
re wiped shows- I could see wiping some pilot thing that never got off the ground, but I would think that people would preserve shows that actually made it to air. And everything I've heard about Doctor Who sounds like it was, and the new eps are, a big part of Brit tv culture that I can't believe they would record over it. With the resurgence of Doctor Who, the tv people must be thanking those illegal copiers, even more so since it would have been much harder to produce and move the copies back then. With modern shows, I have a hard time believeing they'll ever really suffer from disappearing like that. Everything seems to wind up on the net, and isn't there some theory that nothing on the net is ever truely deleted?
re censored news- makes you wonder why they even try to claim free speech any more? Granted it has always been a limit, but any more it seems like you're only really allowed to say what people want to hear unless it is anonymous. Interent has helped that some, though with that comes a lot of crackpot ideas and rants.
re odd unis- we've got one over here that was started by a religious nut job called Bob Jones University. Degrees from there mean nothing to any respectable employer or uni, but the guy can say he has his own university that teaches 'the right way of things' or some other bs like that. Think he also got some jail time. Not sure, one of my professors mentioned him a year or so ago. Just remember thinking it was kind of ridiculous how anyone can put out claims that they are a uni or college and some people will buy it. Kind of like that movie Accepted, but at least there is some entertainment value in the movie.
And while I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to W. Bush in office since I was too young to do anything about it one way or another, from the little I've seen he definately is not the type to be joking when he says something like that.
re uni courses- over here by the time all the odd requirements are met it is over a year wasted. Would have to look at the paperwork again, but I think it is around four semesters of crap that we have to take, and none of the course work you do for your major can count towards the general stuff, i.e. I'm a history major which counts as social science over here and we had to have I think 9 hours/3 courses of social sciences. Because history was my major, none of my history courses counted towards that 9 hours and instead I had to take stuff like psychology, and other stuff that for the life of me I can't remember off the top of my head (obviously they really had an impact). Might of been some English coureses, but don't remember how those were counted. Then there is the stuff that is required for the major, but isn't really your area, like me having to take US, Indian, and South Amer History when my main focus is European medieval. At least there is a mild interest in the required extra history junk.
re IB- school I went to at least we didn't have to do 'hard' sciences or math. The math course I took, the lower level option they offer, was easier than the pre-calc course that the school made us take first. Thank god because I'm terrible at math and didn't finish the test with what I had to do. Think I said before biology was the only science I had to do other that the 9th grade class that had a bit of everything.
We have some small schools here that can't afford to have enought teachers for eveyone and wind up doing comined grade levels. From my understanding it isn't the greatest situation and the learning usually suffers. Was in a private school pre-K through most of 2nd grade where having multiple grades in one area worked, but it was more of individual learning than having everyone sit down and listen to a teacher. Pre-K was in one area, but the kids were I think between ages 3 to 5 depending when birthdays were, dictating when they could enter K. Then K and 1st were together in one area, and finally 2-5 were together. Except for preK, the grades were real small. There was 4th grade class when i was in 2nd that had 2 kids in it. Looking back don't really know how it worked, just know I learned more there than I did when I started going to a public school where each grade was divided into classes of about 20 students to 1 teacher and most of the work was taught to the whole class at the same time.
re Vamp Diaries- what ep are you on? Think they're getting ready to go on break again, but this time are actually calling it the end of the season. From what I've seen of the past couple eps has me interested in the show again, but it is just a bad time to be able to see a whole ep undisturbed. At least it isn't a show that you have to pay super close attention to in order to follow.
re product placement- haven't noticed it that bad with TVD, but there is another show called White Collar, now that has had some bad spots. One of the main characters drives a Ford Taurus (sp?), and there have been a handful of instances where it might as well have been a commercial instead of part of the story. Think there was some type of phone they did as well. I like White Collar enough where I can ignore the crappy placements, especially if that means the show stays on longer and they don't try to go back to reality tv all the time. Heard on one network that does a lot of entertainment news that MTV no longer considers itself Music Television, and in fact no longer shows any music vids, just their crappy whiny reality stuff. Don't know what the M is supposed to stand for now.
re programme slots- they don't keep shows on at the same time over there? How do you ever know when something is on? That would bug the crap out of me. I like knowing when my shows are on, and look forward to whatever night it is. Especially lately I look forward to the shows I watch on the nights they're supposed to be on. Big disappointment when they aren't.
re ads/credits- For several years now they've been doing banner ads during programmes. Some aren't as bad as others, but the real bad ones always manage to come on at the most inconvient time possible. Most channels over here have gotten to the point where they have some kind of constant advertisement for another show on that channel over on the right hand corner. Typically they are semi transparent, but still annoying. Think it is the Travel channel that has/had an ad for a new season of something that was coming on that went like a quarter of the way up the screen. That one get annoyed at. Least don't watch a lot on there. Other channels are bad about putting moving banners as advertisments for other shows on that channel. Enough action to distract from what you're currently watching, and are usually brighter than the show. There are some channels where the banners at the bottom aren't bad because it is small, non-intrusive and the it is something that only comes up for about 10-15 seconds saying what is going to be on next.
The ads that over the past few days I've noticed that are really annoying are ones on youtube. There have been a couple vids I've watched where after the vid was over, an audio commercial starts to play and I can't find any sort of off switch. I like watching/listening to vids and that being it. If I cared about the ads I would pay attention to them on my own. Don't need crappy audio going with it.
As for credits, it is like they don't exist for shows anymore. They are squashed down so they usually take up less than half the screen and you couldn't read them if your life depended on it, while either the start of the next show or just plain commercials. Don't mute it, but don't pay any attention to it either. Usually food or bathroom run it it is commercials and credits. Not really loyal to any particular channel, just to shows. If the show changed channels, would have no problem following it and ignoring the original channel. There was one channel called Lifetime that I never watched because of their typical programming until they got a hold of one show that looked interesting and I wound up liking. It didn't go with the rest of their programming at all, and of course they started jerking it around, didn't air it right, never advertised for it, etc. Finally it got to the point where it was time to renew, and instead of saying they weren't going to, they sat on it so long that no one else could pick it up and and the cast moved on. Have never watched anything on that channel again and am never going to.
re US sports- wasn't interested in watching any sports until I got to the uni. At that point got into college football (our version of football, not what the rest of the world calls football). After getting into Brit tv started getting into international soccer/football. Not into anything else. Like you said, too many breaks. Was probably the most surprising thing to me when I started watching football - the utter lack of breaks other than half time (not sure that's right, but haven't really heard it called anything, so..) The worst with breaks, though, is when you're actually at a game over here that is being broadcast on tv, they have what are called time outs on the field that are breaks so that the network can go to commercial and tv viewers don't miss anything. Great for when you're at home, make the game extremely boring if you're there. Breaks it up too much.
re Aussie politician song- enjoyed the first one, second one was okay - rather long.
re A2A- the whole life/death/purgatory/in between is a common theory thrown around. Granted no one really quite nails down who is who and what everything means in any sort of mythology. As for Sam's mind dying, in ep6 series 1 of A2A, Alex thinks that she is finally dying because she is getting colder or something like that. In that ep she says that it takes the brain seven minutes to shut down. I am guessing this means after the heart has stopped. With that info, a theory popped up that 1 minute in 2006 time (assumed real world) is equal to a full year in Gene's world. So Sam returned to 1973 and lived until 1980 = 7 years. Of course that doesn't fully stand up or Sam probably would only have been unconcious for a few seconds, assuming he really is in a coma, in LOM when the 2006 voices seem to be pleading with him for several months. Maybe because in a stable coma time would move differently than if he were for sure dying.
A DCI Jim Keats is introduced in series 3, and the interaction between him and Gene has been characterized as kind of angel v demon or god v devil. As much as I can see something like that, I'm keeping an open mind, and just letting it go where it goes, and keeping fingers crossed that it is good. Someone read a message/tweet or something like that from the actor that plays Ray, and he supposedly said it was good and he was pleased with how it turned out and he didn't see it coming. He doesn't think anyone else will either, but then I think there are very few theories that haven't been purposed on fan sites. You get enough minds anonymous minds working together and they can come up with pretty much all theories. Whether people pay attention to them are not is another thing.
re B&B spanish- while not typically a fan of Beavis and Butthead, really liked this clip, probably because it was so accurate from what I've seen on the Spanish station we get here. Think it's Univision, not Telemundo, but everything they said still applies, and given how little I know of Spanish, their impersonations sounded accurate as well. Instead of dresses anymore, they are skimpy bikinis that cover only the necessities. Also love how they think it is a shampoo commercial, and I've seen shampoo commercial that are very close to it.
re web archiving video...yeah, it was cool to find out that Australians had posted songs I love on You Tube...it's non-discriminatory that way. Pity more people don't do it...e.g. there are some more Australian songs I'd like official videos for etc.
Bob Jones rings a bell...maybe I'm thinking of someone who said they took a martial arts course from an 'institute' with his name on it. Dunno. Maybe you can do a double degree from Bob...Chemistry and kick-boxing?
re US uni courses...that's why I said that I was disappointed that a major uni here was going down the US route. Be a pity if more unis followed...re having to study stuff you don't want to. Back to education...Australia has recently had problems with fly-by-nighters running courses attended by rich overseas students...who probably don't know that they're dealing with fly-by-nighters. Some of those places have shut down, which is a pity for them. Indian students burned especially, from memory.
re your IB course...wonder if it's different here...but I thought that they were meant to be standardised around the world. Just seem to remember hearing that it was a mix of hard and soft subjects...you couldn't do all hard subjects or all soft subjects...it's meant to be able to get you into any uni course you like, so having no hard sciences for a qualification would defeat the purpose of the IB, you'd think.
re "K"...think I've heard of that before, but don't remember about it. Wiki has nothing on it. Watched a funny ep of Despertate Housewives where the primary school kids didn't get grades...they were assigned animal rankings...a covert form of ranking students which left the parents baffled. Mushy liberal scheme? You mention 20 students to a class...I think in the old days that would have been considered overcrowded, but maybe nowadays it is seen as cozy. You'd get more attention by the teacher for each student you get rid of.
re V.D. up to the ep where Stefan learns to love again after thinking he wanted to die because he was back on the juice. Seems soapy...not sure you could pick up anywhere and not be lost...Days Of Our Lives apparently has that quality though...miss a few years? Don't worry...you'll pick it up in a jiffy!
re product placement...Macs are ALWAYS shown EVERYWHERE...ONLY the good guys, I think. Can't remember a show or movie or so where a paedophile or something was using an Alienware laptop computer...wonder if they PAID for that spot! Re MTV...in one of those Aussie sketch shows I linked to before, they used to do "Empty V"...a spoof on the Australian edition of that (before it was a channel here...used to be a programme on a network here first).
re timeslots - it's getting worse here too...I get my info from a weekly insert and that can be out of date the day it comes out! Even my EPG sucks...it said Flash Forward was showing after midnight (they should give it a decent slot on the other digital channel...its timeslot keeps getting worse) and when I tuned in around that time it had been running a bit. Pathetic. Networks here play silly buggers...it's all about the ratings...they're measured in 15 minute increments. So, one network will over-run a good rating show, which might knock the shine off a rival network's show...also fluffs the ratings for their own following show...makes it look like it is a good rater. Btb, a network boss here said Cougar Town was a pile of crap...he's the guy who runs the show! Presumably they fluffed it ratings early on to get the ad dollars.
Often here people complain about the volume on ads being louder than the programme. Have heard that this isn't true...they're more intense, but not louder, if that makes sense. Annoying in any case.
re You Tube ads...they're trying to make money somehow. I like viewing music vids. One annoying practice is the 15 to 30 second ad which plays before the video. Think that once you view it, they don't bother you again with it for repeats. Using a networks catch-up service I was really annoyed about having ads...fortunately I didn't want to watch the whole show...just the start, but gee, ad at the start, then after the titles. Awful. Anyway, in order to 'save' certain music vids which may be pulled, I've downloaded them. That's something new...browsers like IE and Firefox display this option. A year or more ago I archived a site which captured You Tubes etc. No need for that anymore. Have found that official You Tubes often don't have a good sound quality compared to the illegal stuff. Sucks too.
re Lifetime channel...real dog in the manger stuff...they don't like a show but they don't want anyone else to pick it up either. Nice. Totally random comment...said before that I was a fan of The 4400, I think. Guy in that is in V now. First ep, I think, he stands in front of a warehouse...number 4400, I think! Cute.
re breaks in footy. Same over here too, but maybe not so bad. Aussie footy is fast paced, but now they are holding play after goals so ads can show. Just to be snobbish here...read something in sports section on Thursday here...re NFL..."the average NFL match broadcast lasts 185 minutes. Of that, an average 10 minutes and 43 seconds is made up of something called play". That's what I'm talking about! As a kid I used to watch test cricket, which I found fun, with fast bowlers, there'd be a lag between each delivery...sort of like our version of pitches in baseball. Fast bowlers run in...and some like to intimidate by taking a long run up! Not sure how that compares to that NFL stat though.
Back to LOM...maybe this will be my clearest statement on the issue...they should have had Sam rescue Annie THEN recover. Two birds. One stone. But they stuffed up having him come back to rescue them. My way, you get the satisfaction of that story being resolved, plus a happy ending of sorts. Their way, you are supposed to believe that Sam was conscious after jumping off a skyscraper...and be able to have coherent thoughts...sure...
re Keats and Gene...no more spoilers, but sounds like Lost territory...I'm running with their scenario too. As with LOM, it's hard for a respectable tying up of loose ends.
Hmmm...I think you may have set a record for longest post between us! Not sure if I've just beaten it...if I have it's YOUR fault!
edit in: re Spanish...when I saw the Spanish ghost movie "The orphanage", I could thinking of the fast talking Spanish parodies on the fast show...I'm sure Americans talk just as fast, but it's comical when you hear it in another language and it's got a machine gun pace.
A newspaper gave a link to a You Tube featuring a cat, here...this might amuse you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skk_rNPL7SQ
Later, I was pondering if there was a human equivalent for this, and I was reminded of an episode of The Young Ones. I've posted up a You Tube from that show a while back here...the one with the quiz show...anyway, this is from the same show, just before that quiz scene...last 15 odd seconds relate to the cat video above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQslnmcHOeM
re IB- as much as I think they try to keep it standardized, there probably is some change between regions. Like on the final tests we sat for, they were labled as test for North America with instructions in Spanish, French, and English on all of the tests. There's probably differences to deal with the different ways countries teach as well, i.e. we don't catagorize over here between 'hard' and 'soft' sciences; it's all just science and any will do to get into unis. Of course if you plan on going into a specialized area it probably helps your chances of getting in if your schedule is heavier in pertainint areas. Plus the differnt uni requirements in different countries. In some place like Europe I imagine there are more people moving between countries to go to uni, whereas over here you rarely hear of anyone going outside the country. Occasionally there are jokes in the medical field with people who couldn't get into medical school here so head to the Caribbean or Latin America to go to medical school because supposedly anyone can get in.
Haven't done a whole lot of research into how it actually works going from one country to the other. Wanted to go to a UK school when I was getting out of high school, but there was a resounding loud NO from my parents so paying for it would have been impossible. Little that I saw for entrance requirements before I was shut down were final total test scores. There may have been more requirements and just didn't look deep enough because it would have been a waste of time.
re K- sorry about that. K is short for kindergarten, and is a year level in school just like the numbered years. It is the first year kids enter school, usually at age 5, some places it is a full day, others it's half a day, and in some places a parent can choose which. Then is first grade, second, etc. through twelth grade, which is the year we graduate from high school. Pre-K (pre-kindergarten) is any school that a kid goes to prior to entering kindergarten. Pre-k is usually more of a day care type thing than anything else, but in some cases there is a little bit of learning going on - maybe shapes, colors, etc. Place I went they started us on reading, writing, geography, and some of the more serious subjects
re class size- my mother teaches art to grades 6-8. Any more she usually has around 28 kids in a class. Wouldn't be too bad for her if the classroom could accommadate it, but the table space just isn't there. When we lived in Florida, she was the only art teacher at a school 6-8, and a class size for her ran around 45, but she had a huge classroom that also had several storage rooms, that for a school were decent size. Kids also behaved better, at least according to her anyway. Don't know how she got that room. The admin people probably thought it was too big for most other classes to really use successfully, and too small for band or orchestra. Think when I was in grade school we were starting to average around 25 for most classes.
re TVD- had the true season finale. Better than some of the mid season stuff, but found it lacking in several instances. Still don't care about the brother, and wish he would disappear. Think one of my biggest problems is that it seems like Damon has just lost so much of his original character and has just become very weak. Seems like almost anyone can best him, and Stefan is even more bada--! Damon was one of the reasons I stuck around, and ever since he stopped caring about Katherine he just seems to be floating around. They need to give him a real purpose other than willingly saving everyone all the time.
re product placement- For Macs it is really funny. It has gotten to the point where probably 90-95% of the laptop computers shown are Mac computers, and it is very obvious they are Mac computers, but instead of showing the apple on the back of the screen and acknowledging they are Macs and giving free advertising, the prop people will put some kind of sticker over the logo. One of the most ridiculous I've seen is a kid's show that has Macs all over, even desktop ones, and any place an apple is on the real product, they put a pear. It even lights up still when the computers are supposed to be on.
Have noticed for Iron Man 2 and Sex in the City 2 the product placement is pretty bad and I'm not even going to see the movies! There are a couple cars and a couple phones that any time they run an ad for one they are saturated with graphics, props, clips, etc placing them in the movie, and in case the person seeing the advert missed all of that, the voice over person is always sure to add at the end "... and see the X in blah-movie coming out whenever." Find it disgusting, actually.
re timeslots- people would not stand for that here. Think LOST went over by 10 minutes once into the timeslot of a show that had poor ratings (may have been USLOM, can't imagine why I would know about it for any other reason) and everyone was up in arms, even the people that watched both shows and preferred LOST. On a side note- LOST is finally over and don't have to hear about it any more : ))!! The other thing is I don't know if any US show could survive if the networks were always moving them about. The original Law and Order apparently had been shuffled this past year and even loyal viewers never knew when it was on, and now is on the chopping block waiting to see if they are going to get another season or not.
re Courgar Town- never been a big Courtney Cox fan, way to whiny, and had no interest in watching older women with their boy toys or drooling over the younger guys. Can't believe it has lasted as long as it has. Not sure if it is coming back for another season, though.
re ads- over here we definately have ones that are louder than the programmes. There are times for a show that the volume has to be turned up about 3/4 of the way to fully and clearly hear it, and then when the commercials come on it has to be turned almost all the way down so you don't go deaf.
re You Tube- haven't come across any more of the audio ads after the video is complete. Maybe it was a test run and enough people didn't like it and had too much of a negative effect on their willingness to buy what was advertised. They were unofficial vids, though, like powerpoint ones people make with lyrics to the songs. Agree that the commercial at the start is annoying, as well. Just get sick of constantly being bombarded with ads. Think I don't mind them on TV because grew up with them and that is just the way it has always been, whereas online when it was first becoming popular, you hardly saw any ads and it was mostly just content you were looking for. Now every page seems to be covered in them.
re sports- no idea how the cricket comparison would play into NFL as cricket is basically non existent over here. Little that I know of it, reminds me more of baseball, but with more complicated rules. The NFL jibe might be right. Don't keep up with any pro teams, but when my mom watches it sometimes it seems like there is a commercial almost after every play. Then the announcers always have their commercial bits they have to say, so it really starts stacking up. Think I've said before the only real sport I tend to keep up with over here is university american football, and that is mostly just what pertains to the uni I went to and the division it is in. Watch football/soccer international games when they're aired, but as it is hit or miss as to which teams it is just for the fun of it. Will probably try to watch World Cup matches. Saw one of the pre-Cup matches the other day that was US vs Czech Republic (I think). Tuned in at like the 89th minute and the score was 2-3. Had three minutes stoppage time added, and the Czech turned it into 2-4. Then the announcer made some comment about play against Australia and later England and all I could think was 'yep, and we're going to get our butts kicked.'
re fast talking- In school there were a bunch of kids whose first language was something other than English and they would comment from time to time on how fast we sounded, but I think it also has something to do with the way the sounds, word formation, etc of the language are formed. Latin based languages just seem to be able to pick up a lot of speed, and personal belief is that they don't have a lot of hard sounds to them. The German based languages have more hard sounds that trip the tongue up and don't allow for the same quickness - not to mention the German fondness of compound words. While they make the language easer to understand sometimes, they are a real mouth full to say. There have even been things I've seen in some asian languages where the speakers are still slower than some of the Latin based stuff.
This is a Windows 7 commercial they run over here with subtitles. It actually sounds a little slower here than when it is broadcast on tv.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3IEZ3jgudc
re vids- don't know much about cats, but I think I would be concerned if my cat were going after its own tail that aggressively. Saw commenters say that their cats do similar things, so maybe it's just cause I'm not really around cats. Though after seeing this don't know how cat people can call dogs dumb for chasing their own tails. Maybe it is just a boredem issue with both species.
With the second one, that gag never gets old. Remember some older cartoons (can't remember which ones exactly) would use this now and again. Think there are some Robot Chicken clips that use something like this as well.
Found the following clip in the side bar, and just find the combination of dorks and condems funny. That and over here the only locations I've ever seen condem vending is in bathrooms at either truck stops and, for some reason I've never fully figured out, gas station bathrooms in small towns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtAfSOLcHEE&feature=channel
Also found this one, thought you might enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fsE4OZN4z4&feature=related
re post length- didn't realize how long these were getting until I went back and looked at some of the older ones. Pathetically I did go back and post a couple into word just to see length. In case you're interested: your last one came in at 3 1/3 pages, my last one came in at 5 full pages, yet neither of those wins for longest post. While I didn't check every post (not quite that pathetic), I did remember one from around the time we started this back and forth that I apologized for about the post length. This one actually has a few lines onto a sixth page, so for now it has title of longest post.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787490/board/thread/128493812?d=131033943 &p=2#131033943
I had a look at the relevant Wiki entry for IB:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBDP#Core_requirements_and_subject_groups
It seems that you can do a soft course, so to speak. My bad then...I just assumed that the idea was if you do an IB, you can study any course you like. So, you now it seems to be that you are not disadvantaged by doing an IB compared to a regular HS certificate. Different thing. On the flipside, IB offers every course which could get you into any uni course you want to...so it's a true alternative to HSC. Just my misunderstanding to start with. re Caribbean medical school...that would be people who didn't get a high enough score, I assume, as opposed to people who took the 'soft' subjects in maths and science. Personally I'd want people who studied advanced maths and science to get into med school (and did well) as opposed to people who don't have a strong mathematical background...doing business type maths, or general maths in HS kind of thing.
re kindergarten...here it means pre-school. Primary school varies from 1st year to around 7th year (I mean around 7 years of primary school)...some states have high school start sooner or later for primary school kids...don't remember which. Maybe both.
28 people n a class might be considered high here...not sure. Maybe higher student numbers are becoming normalised. Probably studies which show that once you get more than, say, 20 kids in a class, outcomes get worse for them, education wise.
re VD...seems to be having a redemption for Damon. Probably a show with an eye on syndication, so they'll try and get to 5 series for that, then coast along until ratings drop and they decided to wrap it up. Just saw Lost finale the other day. Good on them for wrapping it up. At least they can go out on top, although maybe it did go on for one or two series too long...they'll get their syndication though...just got to your comments on that show now...since you're not a fan I'm sorry I mentioned it!
re 95% Mac laptops being shown...actually thought it was 100%. That Alienware using paedo was on Dexter...just remembered. Maybe the shows get free Macs or something if they show their product on screen. Hard to see Alienware being pleased about its exposure!
re ad volume...my point was that it's not a volume thing...it's an intensity thing...if that makes sense. Not a techie, so I can't really explain the difference. The networks can't physically increase the volume on your tv. Online it's different...play some vids and they can be louder or quieter than others.
Here in Australia we have ABC TV. It's government funded. Not meant to have any ads. However in recent years they've taken to advertising their shows or products sold at their store. Really annoying. Especially the blah pieces by it's own talent...where the stars crap on about something or other...we're meant to see that they're people or something.
re cricket...think you have teams in LA maybe...you've got a lot of sub-continent ex-pats living there who like to play it. Find popularity of college sports in the US surprising. Over here, it's elite sport or nothing. People would just not give a shytte about watching college teams play...it would never get televised. Maybe pay tv here shows US college sport, but they show professional fly-fishing too, I'm guessing. re World Cup...Australia made it. Not sure how tough your group is, but Australia's is tough enough. We made the next stage last time, but it will be tougher this time around. Don't really view the US as being better placed than us to do well. It's a mouse on the world stage, like us. Edit - just found out Australia is playing the US in our last warm up game before the soccer world cup. Australia should feel that we can win that. No doubt the US feels the same way. Not sure how tough your group is...ours is competitive...we may have a chance of progressing to the next stage, but then again...
re German language...I had a belief that even if a German read romantic poetry it would sound like an order to invade Poland. Did see a French movie, perhaps, called La Jetee or something (Brad Pitt's 12 Monkeys was based on it) and I did actually find the spoken German not unpleasant on the ear.
re Robot Chicken gag...actually surprised...thought that the guy in the comedy show kicking his own head was quite novel...the man is literally at war with himself. If you've got vids of similar stuff I wouldn't mind seeing it.
re condom scene...actually got a laugh out of that...didn't really get into Bottom...ooh...funny me. They didn't mention glow in the dark condoms...they have those ones now. Was controversy here, I think, re condom machines in high schools. Think Japan has vending machines for used female underwear...obviously for the guys...can't really imagine a chick suddenly needing a used set of knickers.
Nice poker scene vid too. Can't believe it is a prime time sport in the US. No where near as exciting as competitive grass growing. Sometimes they need the super slow motion to determine the winner on that. You play poker? That clip of yours reminded me of that Aussie sketch series...think it was D Generation...pity I can't find those sketches on You Tube...just found it funny how they often had no clue how the game was played...think I posted a game show related one earlier, but I wanted one for games like chess etc. Oh well. Did find a chess one for Bottom though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f64qJorLrY
Looking for a Degeneration clip re bad game players, I found one of their voice-over pieces of an existing tv show from here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZY2RCSJZPw
Remember Newstopia with Shaun Micallef...they did some funny parodies of ads by a hardware store here...they use the same name and everything...it looks legit until you pay attention:
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=zg6guOvUAMw
Might leave the You Tubes at that...apart from the music ones I added a minute ago.
re longest post...you linked to my post...the top one on page two of this thread...and it's quite short! You mean one of yours below that?
P.S. I remember you saying you like soundtrack music, right? My IMDB profile has a link to my RYM profile page. I've recently started a list there of tv themes that I like. Thought I might post a few...let me know what you think:
Theme from Rush (Australian show)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkj2dVZMJlY
Theme from Number 96 (Australian show)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLLQ8g7XeWE
Theme from Van Der Valk (UK show)
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=zUTHFgXFlbw
Check my RYM link if you want more.
Just a top note: I worked of this post on and off for about a week, depending on when I could get to the computer and get it quiet enough to think/type straight. Just warning that it may be choppy.
re IB- part of the problem in trying to understand the IB programme is that schools just have to meet the basic requirements so that the students can do what is required. Like the school I went to, the programme was just a few years old, money is tight and they don't like giving it to the tougher courses, so we hardly had any options, ie no film or computer science stuff, and only history or psychology as the humanitary options, and taking either HL or SL history was required.
re class size- studies have shown that smaller class sizes helps kids do better, but it would help if they could find money to put towards education. They keep saying kids need individual attention, but they keep cutting teachers while the class sizes grow bigger. Pretty much nationwide over here education budgets have been cut, resulting in a loss of teachers everywhere. Think the best way to get some of that money back would be for politicians to take some cuts. THere are some states over here that are getting ready for some elections, and there are ads for this one guy playing saying how he voted against certain bills that would cost people money, but in the same ad it says he flys home from Washington DC every weekend, which is roughly 1100 miles. If he really wanted to save people money he could just stay in DC!
re TVD- don't want wussy redemption for Damon. He's much better as a bad *ss with random moments of good deeds that no one can really figure out.
re Lost- while it still had a large audience over here, it had dropped off and from what I heard had been going on for too long. They already have sydication, have had it for a couple years I think. Have been flipping through channels at odd times of day and an old Lost ep will pop up on a channel that show nothing but old syndicated shows.
re Alienware- don't have it over here. Only time I've ever seen it on a show was one that was set in Toronto and filmed I think in Vancouver. Was used by the good guys in that show, one that used it the most was quite the techie. Supposedly was able to hack into FBI database and a couple other police ones to find info. Think the other computers on the show were unidentifiable grey boxes.
re volume- might be in the way a show is filmed vs a commercial. Annoying anyway. Only premium cable channels over here are kind of ad free. Don't have access to any of them, but think they are running ads for their own stuff during the credits of shows.
re college sports- the two big college sports are US football and basketball. While there are other sports played very competively at that level, many people don't care about them unless they are somehow tied to the sport, ie their kid plays. I know basketball got its start at the college level, and for awhile any way, and it's my understanding that the sort of finalization of American football rules, line ups, etc were developed by people at the college level and took awhile to develop pro. Plus, there is a strong sense of loyalty with most people to their alma mater, and they have a tendancy to keep up with the old school. Also probably a way or reliving the 'good old days' where you're on your own fr the first time, yet life is not solely about daily responsibilities yet.
re World Cup- USA is grouped with England, Slovenia, and Algeria. Somehow we managed to not get slaughtered against England, and their goalie screwed up so it ended in a draw. Missed the Slovenia/Algeria match, though. Caught the US/Slovenia match. So it seems Slovenia is a good team, and probably the best of our group. Thought we had won, but had a goal called back - apparently only the ref that called it back knows why. Was also able to catch most of the England/Algeria match. Algeria seems to be the weak team in the group, and England for some reason isn't playing very well this year. We're tied with England in our group for points, but we're up on goals. Also able to catch part of the Germany/Australia match, and the later part of the Australia/Ghana match. If US beats Algeria, we'll be playing Germany or Ghana from the looks of things. Don't know if we'd have much luck beating either team, but maybe they'll pull something off. Only saw one warm up match - think it was US/Slovakia, and we were beat pretty bad. Don't know how many were broadcast over here. Luckily it seems most of the World Cup matches are being broadcast, just a matter of knowing which channel.
Also with the World Cup, saw some players trading jerseys after the match. Do you know if this is some kind of tradition or something?
re head kicking gag- looked through some of Youtube, and either I'm confusing it with something else, or it's just not on youtube. Did see an ep of Scrubs when flipping through channels the other day where in one of JD's day dreams he is fighting his own head - couldn't find the clip on YT, and don't have any idea what season, ep number or anything like that though. There is one part of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest with a body leaving the head behind. Maybe this is what I was thinking of.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_9JPfqJJ8o
The more relvant parts are 1:55-2:25, which shows how the head comes off, and then 5:39 to the end of the clip. Pretty much everything else is just fighting of some kind.
re condoms- at the uni I went to, think it was two years ago, they implemented some kind of program where they would put free condoms in the public bathrooms in the dorms. Something about promoting sexual health or something. Dorm I was in had what were considered private bathrooms, so don't know what actually came of that plan. Was a little controversey at beginning over who was going to pay for it and that it would promote sex, etc. Course anyone who had actually lived in the dorms would know that free condoms aren't going to make a damn bit of difference to the amount of sex going on in the dorms.
Condom machines in high schools would never fly over here. If pregnany rates started going up, they'd just push for more abstinence programs. Waste of time really. By saying sex is bad, etc you make kids want to do it more. Sensible way would find a way to make it no big deal, take the line that everyone does it eventually, and encourage being smart about it.
re used undie machines- gross is the only thing I can say, and have no desire to know why a man would want a used pair of female underwear.
re poker- there was a big surge in popularity over here around 5-6 years ago where poker was the new big 'sport' to show on tv. Has calmed down, but unfortunately it is still on tv. Don't watch it or keep track, so don't know if it still has prime time slots; might on some sport channels ie ESPN2, ESPN3 and the like. Our other edge-of-your-seat sports include fishing how to and hunting, most of which is men crouching on the ground somewhere talking to the camera. Somehow competitve darts also makes it on from time to time. Just don't get it.
Don't play poker myself. Tried to learn right before I started college and couldn't get anyone else I knew to play, and didn't want to go online, so never really go into it. Could probably play passably if I had to, but have little luck with any form of betting or gambling and imagine I'd lose more than anything.
re chess clip- how is it possible to lose all the black pieces yet still have all the white? Entertaining clip, but some parts very over done.
re Degeneration- love the opening sequence. Probably would have enjoyed it more if I was more familiar with the show they were dubbing over, but always enjoy these type of things.
re hardware store ad- was clicking around some of them, and found quite entertaining. Some of them sound like something that employee would think about customers. The bomb one you linked I really enjoyed. 'Here's the best fertilizer, and here's how to set up the bomb you promise that you aren't building.' Wonder if the guy building the bomb could say it was Bunnings fault the bomb was detonated since the garden man walked him through the process?
re longest post- for some reason the link I put in is going to the correct one for me. Don't know what's going on there, but the one it is supposed to go to is my post from Friday, February 20, 2009. On my screen it shows it being posted at 16:10:54. Don't remember when I actually got that one up, so I don't know if the clock is set to some kind of standard or if it is set to the time zone the poster is in.
re music- liked the Rush theme, others didn't really strike me. Have the RYM page bookmarked now, and will be perusing it at length over the next few days. Saw a note on there about looking for vids for the songs. With songs I've looked for on YT, I find my best shot is to go for a lyric vid. It can sometimes take longer to sort through some, but I can usually find one where the sound quality is better than some of the others, and for some reason the record companies seem to be leaving the lyric vids alone.
Later.
In case you want to edit again, maybe you should leave it for this reply...I see that you edited this around two hours ago. You're doing like I do...adding stuff as it comes to mind. In the past I've had lots of time to do this as you were infrequent responding. You're throwing a spanner in the works now!
re IB...I was thinking that it was like something I thought education should be...my idea was that there would be some core subjects which students had to pass...say one 'proper' maths subject, a science subject...preferably a 'hard' science, but at worst a 'soft' one like psychology or biology, and maybe English with elements of grammar in it or/and philosophy, which dealt with logic. Nowadays you can take soft options of say business maths and humanities type subjects...maybe no maths at all. There should be a lot of work put into getting all students adequate at 'proper' maths. Even if teachers think that their students are stupid...make those teachers work, dammit! I sort of thought that IB required some 'hard' subjects, which meant that if you got good enough grades, there wasn't really a course you couldn't do at uni, or catch up on. What IB means to say, I think, is that they're not an inferior course to regular highschool...they're absolutely equivalent. My mistaken belief was that they were more demanding. They're not really.
re teachers and politician pay cuts...good luck with that! Over here we have a shortage of maths/sciency teachers, I think. You remind me of those Wall St gamblers...erm CEOs...the ones who cost the tax payer tens of billions of dollars, then flew Lear jets to senate hearings...costing a bucketload of money to do that. Think that next time they flew commercial!
re TVD, my memory isn't the best...in the finale, I thought I saw John lose his hand in one scene to Katherine. Later on, before he is killed, he still has his hand! Wonder what that was all about. Been a while since that ep...even at the time I got confused over who Isabelle was as compared to Isabelle...getting a bit big...Katherine Elena's mum, and Isabelle was the vampire who turned the boys? I know I should just Wiki this!
re Lost...2nd last year here it was on late at night. Final series was on 2nd digital channel at a good time, which was good. Finale on main channel though, at a good time. Dropped off more here than in US I think.
re Alienware...a US company...expensive, high end machines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienware
http://alienware.com/
I knew it was their laptop on Dexter because they have an identifiable illuminated logo on them, like Apples. Still curious whether they paid or gifted the laptop to be used by a paedophile character in the show!
Re Apple, I watch a 15 minute weekly show called Media Watch over here. Apple was mentioned with regard to product placement. There's a transcript below and a link to the 5 minute segment on product placement. Apple gets mentioned towards the end of the piece. Not sure if you can view the video (story is "Here's one I prepared earlier").
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2932975.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/video/
re college sports...not sure how different Australia is to the US re tertiary study, but no one would pay to watch these teams play. There must be some kind of cultural explanation for this. Personally, I do find it odd how Americans go crazy over this!
re World Cup...my take was that England would probably top your group and US would finish 2nd. It's saying a lot about your group if I thought that US could finish 2nd...weak group. England is hard to get a handle on...overachievers (won one world cup) or underachievers? Conceivably both US and England could miss progressing. Been that kind of tournament...results not according to rankings and reputations.
re Germany 4 - Australia 0. It happens. Not surprising. Was reminded of this result though...in a world cup qualifier between England and Germany:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-jv6KeWM50
England were a reasonable bet to win the title this year...until their two draws. Germany has a way better pedigree than England, world cup wise. In tipping, I tipped England to beat yous 2-0 and Germany to beat us 3-1. Got the goals scored right, just the distribution wrong.
Honestly, I don't know too much about the US world cup history...don't really see a reason why they got direct qualification but we didn't...apart from the huge potential market in your country. We now have direct qualification...better than before, but still a jump to playing sids like Germany. Before we had direct qualification, we'd play Pacific islands...and if we didn't win by more than 10 goals to nil, it was a bad result! New Zealand is now the big fish in that little pond...and they qualified by beating some lowly country. Australia sometimes had to face South American teams...who got a bloody second chance at qualifying! So, we'd lost out on world cups by playing strong nations. Four years ago though we beat Uruguay to qualify, which was a good result to us. Bit of a missed opportunity four years ago. We qualified for the next stage and played Italy in the round of 16. It was 0-0 near the end and I felt that Australia had the edge, energy wise. We could have made the quarter finals, I think, if it had gone to extra time. But we gave away a penalty near full time which was converted. Italy went on to win the cup. Australia might have had one more win in them had they progressed, but it's asking too much to win big matches against quality opponents regularly.
Ah, just noticed you dropped the reference to Germany thrashing us! I watched my first game last night...our draw with Ghana. Started midnight. Earlier game for us 4 am. Forget it! Especially against a country like Germany. We are still a mathematical chance to qualify. We MUST win against Serbia (not easy) AND EITHER Germany thrashes Ghana more than they thrashed us (unlikely) OR Ghana beats Germany (more likely). Draw most likely, in which case Germany tops the group and Ghana also qualifies. We lost an important name for us last night...Harry Kewell...injury prone of late and maybe not so world class anymore. Didn't have Tim Cahill last night either...he plays for the same club your goal keeper plays for. Both are good players, but at middling clubs...not sure the big clubs would want them...they're not THAT good. Oh yeah, swapping tops is a tradition in world cup matches. Anyway, Australia looked more dangerous towards the end of the game, but I wasn't impressed with what I saw...gave away the ball regularly and didn't press home our advantage when in attack. 10 men made it even harder for us.
edit - after Germany thrashed us, I noticed a comment by an England player to the effect that Germany had been practising with the official ball for months, which we hadn't. Hate that sort of corporate favouritism. Should be a level playing field for all the nations...it's not like Germany needs the help! The way the ball acts at altitude has been controversial this world cup. Bit wobbly, apparently.
*** edit - Germany had also been practicing on the pitch, which we hadn't...affected us much? You be the judge:
http://bit.ly/c9R3Kg
edit - looked at last Friday's sports pages here in The Age...the New York Post is reported as saying that the US beat England 1 - 1 in your soccer game. Huh? And a Chicago tv station had picture of the host nation...they got a picture of South AMERICA with the "South Africa" printed in the continent. Double huh?! Amusingly, here in Australia, an newspaper reported a New Zealand draw as "Australasia 1 - Slovakia 1: Kiwis get the point". Predictable reaction across the ditch to that headline! I got a laugh out of it in any case.
edit - re England goal keeper blunder v USA...ongoing issue for them. In recent history they've had numerous howlers by various goal keepers. Seem to remember David Seaman concede a goal from a Brazilian corner kick...i.e. the corner kicker scored the goal! That is incredible! Might be on You Tube.
edit in...got a bit of time now...here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgaAa0kRask
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExUX7MBk5UM
24/6 - Oh well, Australia did what I hoped they might do...win one, draw one and lose one. Unfortunately our thrashing at Germany's hands means we are knocked out. Guess who Germany play next up?...England! England have shown poor form so far. USA have been really lucky so far...favourable grouping, you got a point against England, which was a bonus, and you got to play Algeria last up, which was ideal for you. Lucky for you, you play Ghana next up, which are more beatable for you than Germany. We draw with Ghana, after being down to ten men. IF you beat Ghana (no cert), you will play Uruguay or South Korea. Uruguay will be tougher to beat. They're the nation that Australia had to play four years ago to qualify for the world cup...they got that damned 2nd stab at qualifying!
If the US win the next one or two games, in four years time there will be pressure on yous to do the same...and there will be no memory of having a favourable group, and an underperforming higher seeded team than you. You'll just be expected to do as well as you did this year. A lot of luck involved in other words...teams in your group, form of 'superior' teams etc. If Germany had won by more goals and Australia had maybe not conceded a goal to Serbia, WE could be facing yous! Both teams would have been confident of progressing in that case!
What do you think of the vuvusevelas...or whatever the hell you call them? I mean the horns? Apparently they're traditional in Africa...despite being created outside of Africa and only been adopted in recent years by the Africans!
re Pirates clip...not sure that that's the same thing...in cartoons, I'm used to seeing bodies which are unconnected, but the object is usually to reunite the parts. In that Young Ones clip, it was the body being at war with its head. Maybe there are cartoons with similar elements, but I just don't remember them. Wasn't a fan of the first POTC, so I stopped watching after the first. Gave up on Shrek too, after the 2nd.
re sex ed...have heard that it's controversial, as applied to US aid or something...conservative agenda promoting abstinence, which doesn't work, and if these countries don't promote it, they get less aid or no aid or something. That's pretty poor, I think, on the US' part. Not sure how much O'Bama has changed that.
re poker...seems to have disappeared from a digital sports channel here. I actually didn't mind it! I used to like watching Pot Black year ago...a snooker programme. It was popular years ago. Darts isn't. Cable probably shows it. Think an Aussie might have won a world title...or come 2nd...oh yeah, an Aussie won the snooker world title recently. Made the news. Young guy.
Was browsing a laptop game in store a while back...tried Yahtzee. Now that I know poker, it makes sense to me! As a kid, it was all Greek to me. But if you know your poker hands, it makes sense.
re hardware store ad in Newstopia...I found the ridiculous products the funniest...in that clip of last time there was the Hunchback Ninja Assassins for $5000 a hit or whatever it was. Didn't want to chase up those...these replies take long enough already!
re long post...found it...2,305 words. This is the link where I found it:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787490/board/thread/128493812?d=131033943 &p=4#131033943
Not sure if that's the one you posted. I know that IMDB gets a bit whacky sometimes...I paste the right URL but when I click it it goes to someone else's recent post or something else. Maybe relative position of post plays a part in this too.
re TV themes...surprised you didn't like Eye Level. It's also a classical sounding theme, like Rush is. Love the banjo playing in the Rush theme! When I first compiled my list, there was no You Tube for some of the tracks I liked. Will add more themes later...currently working on my greatest songs of all time lists from US, UK and Australia. Nearly completed those. Can work on my other lists after that, or add new ones. Might have to check out more soundtracks...I've got a Michael Nyman one and might want to add to it. Got Helloween cd too. Maybe I should check out Serge Leone too.
Cheers.
P.S. word count, not including this, is 1,552.
Oh, your previous post's link is working now. From memory, it was directing me to this post before:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787490/board/thread/128493812?d=129023116 &p=2#129023116
That has 1,199 words, not including spoilers...and you were apologising about the length of THAT?!
Later. 2156.
re schooling- I"m lucky that 'hard' math isn't a requirement. Though, if I had decent math teachers, it might not have been bad. Somewhere along the line we were supposed to have a lengthy fractions unit where we learned to add, subtract, etc, and I don't remember ever being taught it. Just one year we were all of a sudden suppose to know how to deal with them. Then the teacher I had for Algebra I was horrible - one of those teachers that couldn't really explain anything, plus had a very drone like voice that pushes your attention away. It was also always miserably hot in that room, which only added to the difficulty in paying attention. The first test we had in there, the only person who got an A had slept through most of the unit! Then the teacher I had for the Algebra II, couldn't explain things very well either, hardly did any sample problems, and unless you were in the popular clique, she didn't really like you and wasn't very nice if you asked for more of an explanation.
What is really stupid, despite not understanding most math, whenever I have to take a standardized test for something, my highest scores are in the math section.
For 'hard' sciences, I tend to understand general concepts, but have issues when it comes to doing the math to prove them. For instance, took a cosmology first semester at university and loved it, and didn't have a problem understanding it, but the professor didn't require us to do the math behind anything. We just had to understand the function of certain equations in the bigger picture. Even worse with chemistry. At a very basic level I understand the concepts, but always managed to screw things up when had to do equations. Remember these ones we had to do where had to balance out chemicals on both sides. Such as:
CH4 + 2 O2 --> CO2 + 2 H2O
English classes over here are a joke any more. I really don't even understand what is being taught in them any more. Apparently it doesn't matter what a kid writes, or if the grammar or spelling or any type of mechanic is right, just as long as they are writing. I don't understand what the point is of having the class any more since they aren't being taught the basics. Remember at the university there were times the professor would have volunteers read something out loud from time to time, and I couldn't believe how long it could take some of the students to read a simple paragraph that was only four or five lines long. Not to mention how much they'd stumble over words. While not the most common words, they still weren't anything overly difficult. They were in English, History, and Geography classes for the most part, for crying out loud. It wasn't like we were something like in biochem where someone pretty much needs classes in Greek and Latin to pronounce most of the words.
Drives me nuts online when someone starts writing posts in text speak or the spelling is so bad I have to sit there and scratch my head trying to figure out what is being said. Go on to the True Blood board on and off, and occassionally get Twilight people on there, and I have to wonder if they read the books, or if they just watched the movies because the way it is written is just scary.
re IB- over here it is seen as more demanding because the work load is greater than the average class. There is also a set standard that you have to meet in the end, and if you asked a lot of the kids, they don't want to put the effort into it. I do agree that pretty much anyone can do it as long as they are up to working for it.
re TVD- I don't remember John losing his had, but had been forever since I've watched any ep. What it might have been, was he had that ring that was supposed to protect him, so it might have grown back or something similar. I do remember one time where Damon threw him over a balcony, high enough to kill him, and he was walking around soon afterwards.
Isabelle is Elena's mum, and John is Elena's dad. At some point after having Elena and giving her up, Isabelle moved away and married Alaric (sp?). She got bored with life, started looking up vampires, and met Damon, who turned her. Since Elena is a senior in high school, Isabelle could only have been turned 18 years ago at the max. Since she had a married life later, I'm guessing she's been a vamp for less than that. Katherine was the one who turned the boys back, I think the show is saying, 1864. Just remember it was during our civil war. For some reason that has yet to be explained, Katherine and Elena look exactly alike, which means the actress will have to play both characters. From what I remember, the only time Katherine appeared on the show, other than in flashbacks, was in the last ep where she killed Johnathan.
re Alienware- was actually on a fan site the other day that I hadn't visited in a while because the show ended a couple years ago, and an add for Alienware was on the side. Went to their website, and it seems that over here they're marketed mainly as gaming computers. After watching the clip on product placement, sounds like Alienware doesn't have any sort of bit saying that their hardware can't be portrayed negatively. After seeing that they are supposed to be high end machines, they might not have cared who used it as long as it showed the machine being used superiorly with graphics, sound, movie, etc. to other machines on the show.
re Apple- while the ABC policy seems pointless, I can see where they are coming from. It is much easier to control your own shows instead of ones that are picked up from others. Don't know for sure, but the way some channels act over here, they must have a similar policy to ABC of not allowing direct product placement - lot of illuminated pears where the apple is and the keyboard and screen look exactly like macs, or some kind of strategically placed sticker. Granted anyone who has a little bit of experience with electronics can easily see the differences between a PC or phone and a disguised Apple.
re World Cup:
There was one game I was watching, can't remember the teams that were playing, though, where the ball crossed the goal line, but the keeper got it out of their quickly, and the ref and the assistants didn't catch it, so it didn't count. That might have been the England/Germany game. Apparently there have been several questionable calls this cup.
Don't see why anyone has direct qualification. Marketing all over I guess. Some teams will bring more money in than others, so it works better to have them there. Doesn't seem right though. Should just be the top teams period, but as always with sports, money will always be a big drive factor.
re USA team- there were a couple games where we scored a goal and it got called back. The Slovakia game was one. The ref said there was a foul, but no one can find where the foul happened. There was another game that happened in, too. Ref said someone was offside, I think, and in replay it showed they weren't. Played Ghana in the Round of 16. Lost 2-1 during 30 minute added time. They scored only a couple minutes into the 30', and after that we seemed to lose a lot of steam. In an interview think it was one of our players, Donovan probably, said tha the team motto for the Cup seemed to be come from behind, and that it just finally caught up with them.
For the last two games, was pulling for Germany and the Netherlands, respectively. Got one right! Found the final to be a little dull, despite going into the 30' added time.
re Germany practicing- would think that they'd try to keep things fair with the ball. Isn't that part of the point of having an official ball? LOL on the pitch pic. Strikes me as something that you should see in a video game of wacky sports, get rid of the bushes, though. Have a player from each team standing at the bottom whose whole purpose is to keep the ball in play and out of the water. Automatic score for the other team if the ball is lost to the water. Any idea if that was a real pic or one that somebody edited?
re England/Macedonia- seems like the guy standing on the far side of the ball should have headed it out instead of ducking. He was in the keeper's way, so don't quite see how it can be the keeper's fault. He tried to jump for it - was just a tad too short.
re England/Brazil- goal shot speaks for itself, but the announcer is the most annoying one I've ever heard. And don't think I've ever seen graphics like that used to indicate a score change at such a high level, or possibly ever.
re vuvuzelas- saw some games that were held in South Africa prior to the World Cup games down there. They were using them at those games, and at the time I didn't realise they were an instrument - thought they were having audio issues or a massive bug problem. When I found out it was horns making the noise I got more irritated, and during those games they really bothered me. For the Cup matches, they haven't been as much of an issue. One of the announcers said that the cannel carrying the Cup matches was running audio through a filter to take out a majority of the sound from the horns. Don't know if it is the filter that is having that much effect or if just got use to them, but they haven't been bugging me that much. It was funny, though, one match I saw there weren't that many people there blowing them, and it was the first match where you could actually hear the people in the crowd instead of just the horns.
re lost head- I think I was remembering things wrong. Don't know why I thought that I'd seen something similar to that before, but haven't been able to find anything.
re Pirates- don't know if you've heard, or really care, but they are making a fourth one. Don't have a lot of hope for it. Only three of the characters are returning (Jack Sparrow, Barbossa, and Gibbs), and that series was really built on having all of the quirky characters that kept showing up. Maybe it will be a surprise and the break with the other characters will make it seem better, or more like the first one at least.
re sex ed- think the conservative agenda has always been attached to the aid packages to other countries. Against the whole abstinence only program here, and with the different beliefs of the other countries don't see how we have the right to make those kind of dictations. Other thing that bothers me with those ideas is the double standard that are usually in them. At surface level, both boys and girls are told wait until marriage, whereas in practice abstinence is usually pushed more towards the girls, while the boys are more expected to sleep around. Also breeds very repressed people. There is a show over here called '1000 Ways To Die.' Their number one way to die was a Japanese couple that was so repressed that they had been married for a few years and had yet to have sex. When they finally had sex, they both died of heart attacks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjATz8Ma8fQ
Also, was flipping through channels last night before going to bed, and an old ep of 'King of the Hill' was on. It's a show about a blue collar family in Texas that is ridiculously conservative. The wife is a substitute teacher, and has to teach a sex ed course. It takes her days for her just to say the names of the reproductive organs, and not just penis or vagina, but parts like uretha or ovaries. Then at the end of the ep the only kid whose parents give permission to take the course is her own. Couldn't find a clip for that ep. Apparently it was from the first season in 1997 - can't believe that was on for 13 years. Though I can't believe that the Simpsons has lasted as long as it has either. People really need to get over the embarrassment with sex. Most of us wouldn't be here without it, and those born due to in vitro wouldn't be around if their parents hadn't been willing to talk about such issues with a doctor to conceive.
re tv sports- have found some more poker (oddly it is the TRAVEL channel that is carrying it), also found some outdoor bowling, and again came across what was called Australian Rules Football, which seemed like rugby to me, playing live. Odd things are on tv in the middle of the night over here.
re Yahtzee- used to play it with my mom and some times my grand parents when I was younger. Didn't have problems understanding it, but rarely won. I have no luck when it comes to games like that. Much better with random trivia type stuff.
re laptop games- main thing I hate about the Mac - the only game it came with was chess, and never been fond of chess against computers. Miss minesweeper (even though never win at that either) and solitare. Sure there are online versions if I'm just willing to look for them, but it is nice not to have to rely on the internet for something simple like that.
re apologising- those posts just seemed so over done back then. All the other posts had seen or done were a couple short paragraphs at most, and all of a sudden writing a post that's pages long. Little did I know what was to come.
Not done with this yet, writing offline again so going to try to find some clips later, this seems like it should be shorter than yours, and some how this is already 2440 words.
Don't know if the links are really working, but each link is taking me to a different post of yours. Like you said, must have something to do with relative position, and I think there might be something about the user.
Later. 2485
Ah...long posts bad. I'll try this...I'll make dot points try and cover things but briefly...and probably end up with a post 3,000 words long!
a1 - Maths. Over here, it seems that people who don't know it teach it. Hence a drive to get mathematically qualified teachers to teach maths. Man, that's just so crazy! Over here: when I was a kid, when you fell behind, you got into a dumbed down class. Brilliant. Just fall further behind. Why not EXTRA classes for slowies to catch up? Think Asian countries have hard core classes...they immerse themselves in it. Scandanavian countries do well in maths as well I believe. I'm of the opinion that maths and science is important. Not into Christian Maths...where "2 + 2 = 5 because God wills it" is a good answer. Get ALL capable kids to a level where they could tackle uni level maths. If a child is retarded, that would be an excuse not to expect that level of maths. MAKE the teachers WORK HARD...extra classes, not dumbed down smaller classes for the "dummies". re cosmology course...sounds like a general interest subject...not hard science. Maybe unis are dumbing down their courses now because the kids aren't coming with the requisite knowledge...and to appease students who want to get a meaningless "A" or someting. Maybe the problem re English classes you state is - and I've heard this by some (right wing) critics - that it's pretty bolshie...there's not meant to be hierarchy...Days Of Our Lives is on a par with Shakespeare or modern authors...and maybe it's easier to teach that kind of stuff than with more 'difficult' stuff. Over here, maybe they're trying to inflate the numbers of children who pass highschool...easier they make it, the higher the number...a meaningless "A" to the government.
2B - re VD...just seem to remember John being in a room with vampire chick and her henchmen (already forgotten names!) and his ring being taken off...maybe with his hand. Then, before he dies, hours later, presumably, he seems to have both hands and he loses it again or sumpthink.
~2B - re Alienware...from what I hear they are very fast but very expensive...for people who aren't geeks and have money burning a hole in their wallet. Dexter didn't show the pc doing anything spectacular in any case. You watch Dexter? Gotten better from second series onwards. Wonder when it will be back on air here...annoying...hopefully the network will screen it.
1a - re Apple and ABC here...actually, the ABC here is presumable similar to the BBC in the UK...tax payer funded. Annoyingly, in recent years they plug their own merch and even more annoyingly they have ever time wasting nothing ads...people babbling about whatever...just a station ID really. Mute my tv when they play, but man they go on forever now. If your saw that Media Watch vid I linked to last time, it included a scene from 30 Seconds. Actually been watching. Like the curate's egg...good in parts. Stuck with it after so so first ep. Finishes first run tonight...good it doesn't go forever. Accidentally discovered a cartoon series that screens beforehand...don't mind it...eps run to around 1 minute. If you want to watch it...you can follow the sequence of eps...first ep runs a minute and a half though:
Beached as (ep 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=606eK4abteQ
ZZ Bottom - re World Cup...what time matches screen there? I watched the first half of the England v Germany match...started midnight here. The match with the dodgy disallowed goal you spoke of. Same day a dodgy goal given in another match...clear offside not flagged. re Direct qualification...actually, the host nation doesn't have to do anything. That might be it. What I meant was this...the USA plays qualifying matches and if they end up in the top two positions they qualify for the world cup. With Australia four years ago, we topped our group but that didn't count for anything. We had to play this year's semi-finalist, Uruguay, to qualify. We beat them. BUT, a country like Uruguay had two bites of the cherry...they didn't finish in a qualifying position in their group, but they were sort of like a lucky loser...an 'easy' match against Australia to qualify. Four years ago Australia's group had Pacific Island nations...beat them 20 - 0 or what not. FIFA head allowed our group to get automatic qualifiers, but the South Americans kicked up a stink because - from memory - they'd lose a spot in the World Cup...maybe like Uruguay's back door qualification. Australia now plays in Asia...better for us to have decent matches. My point was that I didn't really see the US as having better claims to an automatic qualifying spot than Australia had four years ago.
- You've never heard that soccer commentator before? Australian comedy/entertainment shows have remarked on him before...you're just gonna LOVE this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LDh9BnBGMM
re that easy goal you got v England...network here - similar to ABC but for ethnics! - had a World Cup show and I heard about the following bit...features Tony Martin...a New Zealand comedian I admire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCTZiO9C9xE
Here's an old clip of Tony Martin on The Late Show...playing Arnie...from memory one time they took the piss out of Arnie's movie The Last Action Hero - which I quite liked - but they missed the mark because that movie was already extremely tongue in cheek...not sure if I mis-remembered...different movie referenced here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwdwzFnAxCU
Unrelated...like this Aussie comedian...old bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIUO24WjAZ8
- In any case, Australia must be kicking itself...in hindsight losing 4 - 0 to Germany wasn't the humiliation it seemed at the time. But IF we qualified, we would have played England next stage and seeing how they had a dud tournament, it was a more winnable game than it would have looked pre-tournament. If England had done what was expected and topped your group we still would have played them...but the way things turned out we would have played USA...probably more winnable for us than against England...and yous, no doubt would have felt the same way. Would have given you no chance if England had topped your group and you had to play Germany next. Still, Ghana game reasonably winnable for yous in any case.
- re soccer pitch on hill...guessing it's legit, though obviously not to play on. Seems less trouble to create than your crop circles! Tell you what, free kicks and penalty kicks must be a bytch!!
- by the by...just thought to add this...you see goals like this every now and again on the news:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEdFgkAsVyc
- You know that corner kick goal I posted last time? Well, I play Pro Evolution Soccer 3 on Playstation 2 (still...even though it's an old game). I've saved to memory an exact replica of that goal which I scored in game. Hoot. Maybe in that video last time the goalie should have been back near the far post? Not sure defended could have got it...to short perhaps...wonder if it's legal for them to grab the cross bar and use it to leverage a kick of the ball?
- You mention the World Cup final. Too late for me. A boarder here said she started out backing Holland but their rough play made her go for Spain. Saw a Dutch player KUNG FU kick a Spanish player in the chest! Made me think Pro Evo Soccer could combine elements of Mortal Kombat on it! Was something pretty bad four years ago...and someone's already done the Mortal Kombat thingo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnKXXRkO1Y4
Was trying to find a You Tube of something I vaguely remember...same guy, perhaps...no...wrong guy...STILL A FRENCHMAN though!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-WmfTIRUWY
- re Vuvuzelas - didn't bother me that much. Network fobbed complainers off here with the comment that it was part of the local culture there. Hmmm. Apparently you can lessen it with the right graphic equaliser settings, but don't think most tvs have graphic equalisers that distinct.
ZZ Top - re Pirates...yeah, I stopped caring after the first one. Haven't seen the new Shrek...second one sucked, so I left it there. Stuck with the new Star Wars though...final one half decent.
A1 - re abstinence...hmmm...saw a show where a boy pledged his virginity to his dad! Think it was that Family Guy spin off. Haven't stuck with that show but funny idea...with the boy doing it, it just made a mockery of the whole movement! Saw half a minute of that You Tube...noticed side video...dying masturbating with a carrot! Reminded me of a tabloid story I read many years ago...people going to the hospital after "accidentally" sitting on a cucumber or sumpthink...you know, just having a bath...didn't notice the cucumber floating at an odd angle then BOOM! Cucumber up clacker. Happens.
- re King Of The Hill - not a big hit here. Saw an ep some months back...hadn't been on for ages. Very late. Don't watch. Saw an ep where guy gets into video games from memory...my confession above explains why the topic interests me.
007 - re Aussie Rules Footy...maybe it WAS a clip of Rugby League. One celebrity in the US was talking about league but saying it was Rules. League looks like Gridiron. With Rules, you have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on...and hey, haven't they heard of Offside? No. >
> edit in: I quite like these songs re Aussie rules footy...got some footage of the game:
Greg Champion - The thing about football (used as a network promo song...fan made collage though...good sound quality though):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnNhxqD1FTA
Mike Brady - Up there Cazaly (ad man jingle writer...hit song here, network promo...official video, I think):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxM8XB61ZvU
This is a Rugby League promo by Tina Turner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXIzp0ok24I
This is Rugby Union...Jonah Lomu, the subject here was reportedly scouted by Gridiron teams in the US...very exciting player...but a New Zealander.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsXTa7UCGlk
Here's my favourite Union player...Australia's own David Campese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7W1h05zXRE
Australia has the most competitive footy scene in the world...Aussie rules is dominant in the south and west. Rugby league is dominant in the north and east. Union is popular in League country too. Soccer is played here as well. Can you imagine how good we'd be if all our best Rules, League and Union players devoted their childhood to soccer? I think we might have won more world cups than the Dutch...i.e. >0.
How did my Wittgensteinian presentation suit?
Word count: 1430. TOUCHDOWN! > er, now 1441 (ish) > 1618 > 1687 > 1791
Edit in: you like this bit of music?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wBRPepP3bM
re above track...this relates to my earlier point re those annoying ABC self-promo ads...years ago you'd get that bit of music above to act as filler between programmes...here's another piece which used to get played...ah...the good old days!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sn1UqbbbqQ
Too many You Tubes?
bullet points- not a big fan of. Work well for note taking, but drive me nuts in other things. Your post rememinds me of this one book we had to read in 11th grade that was full of vignettes that the grammar rules were thrown completely out the window when the thing was written , and for some reason the teachers had us reading that while they were trying to teach us the rules for writing papers correctly. Didn't make much sense to me why the two were being done at the same time. Or should it be a challenge to try and cut word counts in half? I know I couldn't win that one!
re easier courses for higher numbers- that is the way it has become over here. Ever since the big push in the belief that everyone needs to go to college, they've dumbed down a lot of the bachelor level courses. There have been several reports that say that a bachelor's degree today is like a high school diploma from, I think, they said maybe 30 years ago or so. Anymore a masters is needed for what used to just take a bachelors.
re teachers that know what they're doing- don't know about over there, but over here we have something called standardized testing for the grade school levels. Basiscally each state has tests that x number of kids are supposed to preform at a certain level. If the level is not met, the school goes on probation, and if the results aren't brought up, the school will lose funding and if it continues, lose acredidation so that completing schooling there means nothing. In an effort to reach these numbers, many schools just teach how to take the tests, and a lot of material is pushed aside if it is not on the test. In further efforts to pass these things in the district I'm most familar with, they have created what are called 'Intervention classes' where the kids get extra time practising. Of course, that doesn't mean that they practise with a teacher that actually teaches that subject. For instance, my mother is qualified to teach art to kids in years K-8, and since she has started teaching has taught levels 6-8. As they are getting ready to start up the new school year, one of her classes was to small. They gave her the option of either doing that class every other day, or teaching a math or science intervention class. Now these classes are for the kids that don't know their basics, ie multiplication and division, maybe very simple algebra, all of which my mother can do if needed in her day to day life, but she is not qualified in any fashion to actually teach these kids math or sceince. She chose the first option. As you said, crazy idea to actually put the kids with teachers truely qualified for the subject matter.
re TVD- Oddly enough the show is being rerun of the channel over here. Might try and catch some of the ones they air in the next few weeks. New season starts over here Sept. 9.
re Dexter- don't watch. On one of those premium cable stations over here. It started airing prior to shows being simple to find online, and have never had any desire to catch up with it or go looking for it online. Watch True Blood that way and after each ep I try to figure out why I bother. There are times I almost forget to watch it before all the links start disappearing. There aren't many shows that I like period anymore, and even fewer that I have that fascination with where I look forward to it every week, want no one to disturb me while it is on, and will catch up online with - something I really hate to do
re Beached As- I can't say that I like it, but there is something oddly entertaining about it that I want to keep watching it. Had to watch the first ep a couple of times before I could pick up on what they were saying, though. Reminds me of a webtoon that someone has done in their spare time.
re World Cup- group stages games were at 8:30 am, 12 pm, and 3:30pm. After that they were usually at 12 and 3:30.
re commentator- god is he irritating, but at least he has enthusiasim. There was a soccer match on here the other night that was the home team, and none of the commentators sounded overly interested in what they were commenting on. Very lack luster and uninspiring. Couldn't stand to watch the whole game even. Saw around half an hour and had to turn it off.
re easy goal- that was one of those times that was pure dumb luck for the US. Could take anyone that knows nothing about the game other than don't let the ball in the net and they could stop the ball. Like the celebratory bounce that Martin gives it after the save.
re goal clip- that was even more dumb luck that the US goal against Engalnd. Love the two different reactions from the different keepers. The guy that scored looks like 'what just happened?' and the other one looks like he wants to go beat up the Korean guy. And looking at it, really can't see any definative way for that to have been saved unless he had stayed in the box.
re Vuvuzelas- saw a story here where the people who run the world basketball championship had to put out a statement saying that the horns will be banned at those games. Can't imagine wanting to bring the horns inside giant metal and concrete buildings. The noise was bad enough outside.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ixjpzEJah0cZoTvRjTeF xiegSzsgD9HBEEC80
re soccer/mortal kombat- that was awesome, though clearly someone has way too much time on their hands. The only thing that could have made that move better was if the italian guy could have managed to hit the french guy in the crotch.
re Arnie clip- like how when he shot the guy the gun sparked, then smoked, and then there was a bang. Spot on with all of his movies seeming the same, other than the comedies, which were hit and miss in my opinion. His face isn't expressive enough to really do comedy well, and his voice will always be too tough. He is in a movie that just came out over here called the Expendables which seems to have every old action hero in it.
re Judith Lucy- decent, but not a big fan of comedians who do the happy sarcasm through the whole act. In general I prefer the ones that are mostly telling stories and are just able to do it in a funny way. Gabriel Iglesias is one of my favs. He's had a couple tv specials, but only able to find the clips from the one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SsBS9tRdH4&feature=channel
Also like George Lopez's stand up specials that I've seen, though he seemed to reuse several jokes. Last one I can think of if Jeff Dunham, who is a ventriliquist and usually does more jokes over stories.
This is him with Achmed, who is one of my favourite puppets he uses. This was probably ripped from a dvd because it is a bit different than what I've seen him do on tv.
[url http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go[/url]
re cucumber- I don't understand in the first place how stupid a person has to be to stick anything so far up that they can't get it out on their own. Someone gets off on sticking veggies up their backside, fine. Just use some commone sense while doing it, or at least own up to the mistake. No one is buying the excuses and the person just comes off looking dumber.
re promos- liked the second one. Found the Tina Turner one funny. When I hear this song, rugby is defiantley not the first thing that springs to mind. If the Jonah Lamu guy was being scouted, I would think rugby would be more fun as there seem to be almost no rules, at least in comparison to US gridiron. From looking at those clips, it must have been Rules instead of Rugby. Have seen things in the past, though, very similar to the Rules game they were showing and people calling it Rugby. It would be nice if they would know for sure before calling it one or the other.
re Incantations- one of those songs that'll grow on me. First listen sort of eh, but not bad.
re Love is All- song not bad. Wouldn't rush out to get the album, but wouldn't turn the radio dial if it came on. Couldn't watch the vid; found it too distracting from the song. Think it was just the colouring - reminds me of they way things are coloured when someone is trying to depict an acid trip.
Final word count: 1502
Thought of mentioning this last time...started watching an English series..."The prisoner". A remake of a 1960s series. This series has 6 episodes apparently. Original had 17 according to Wiki. Not sure if the original was a cult series or critically acclaimed/popular one. Makes me think that maybe Life On Mars owes a debt to it. Similarly intriguing premise. Wonder how it will resolve...if it's just 6 eps, or they have another 2 series of it to go or something. Might try and track down the original in any case. So far I'm enjoying it...has some Americans in it...or actors pretending to be American...not sure if original had that or not.
Hmm re book in vignettes...I remember reading some Kurt Vonnegut once or twice...he was quite liberal in his writing style...still remember what "*" symbolised! (It's a visual thing!).
re dumbed down curriculum...yeah...it looks better on governments' resumes to have a high proportion of students completing high school. That's a lot easier when the syllabus is dead easy...everybody passes! That's great! Isn't it?
re standardised testing...heard something on the radio over here the other day on that or something like that. To do with the teachers, I think. The radio host was saying that this was an idea from the US, but that recent research has shown that it doesn't actually do what it's meant to do...in which case Australia might be importing an idea that has no basis in reality...pure ideology? I emailed the radio programme but I'm not sure if I'll get details on the story back...sometimes they don't.> someone on the show got back to me...apparently a caller mentioned the study...so, hit a brick wall as far as that goes.
re premium channels...well Dexter is on a free to air network here. Haven't seen it for a while...not sure if the network is stuffing viewers around or not. Hopefully True Blood will make a run on FTA TV here sometime soon. Was going to try and review a scene from a show I watch on a site which had loads of tv series on flash viewers. Site disappared. Pity...loads of US and UK shows. If you know of a similarly good site, maybe PM me with the link? I liked the fact that you could view a flash screen...nothing to download, I don't think. Site was called Ninja Video or something. Best site of the kind I'd seen...but I don't move in the kind of circles where I know of these sites...when I try Googling, I tend to find pretty dodgy sites.
re Beached Az...has Australians doing New Zealand accents at times - saw them on tv here...they started out on You Tube and got picked up by ABC...one guy said that the animation reflects his abilities in the medium! - American's can't tell our accents apart, I don't think. Saw the final ep the other night...annoyed that I couldn't find the start to an ep I missed a few weeks back...started a bit earlier. Oh well...but hey, seen it now...emailing the ABC can be useful...they get back to you!
Back to accents...to me it's pretty obvious. With American and Canadian accents, my first instinct is usually wrong...if I hear a North American accent and I ask if they are from where I think they are from, I always pick wrong! Will have to ask someone if they are Canadian if I really think they are American, in order to not guess wrong! Was in a Readings store here and I made the same mistake...but I actually had a leg to stand on...the person lived near the Canadian border. Sort of shot down my theory that the US, being the dominant culture, wouldn't take on the characteristics of a 'weaker' culture as far as language goes. This woman working at the store seemed to have some Canadian elements to her speech...yay me!
re irritating commentators...well, just be grateful that guys like him don't commentate on Australian rules football...some years back we had a team here have a handful of games in a row where they scored over 30 goals in a match...just their side! Rex Hunt over here for Australian rules footy has his own schtick...some people hate him, others love him. Does a Porky Pig impression during calls and comes up with silly names for players. Couldn't see something relevant on You Tube...well couldn't be stuffed mucking around trying to find something which illustrates his style. I do like Roy & H.G...gave clips before...the olympics 'commentators'...they just take the piss out of everything...e.g. for the Greco-Roman wrestling they played a sexy Barry White song as these two grown men grappled with eachother. Couldn't find the clip I had in mind watching You Tube last time.
edit in...saw some of a repeat of an episode of The IT Crowd...geeks who work in IT. Funny scene re a website teaching them how to bluff being interested in football/soccer...make them 'real' man like. Couldn't find that scene...but this would be more interesting as commentary than the GOOOAL! guy, no? It's a later scene from the ep:...omg...found the bit I was looking for...first up...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKHyqjHqQLU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f27IqVo5-Oc
Oh, there's an Australian rules footy commentator here who does have a nice turn of phrase...Dennis Commetti...site I once linked to for quotes is dead now, but I archived the info...some of his better ones:
(Tony Liberatore had just gone into a pack and emerges with blood
gushing from one eye)
"Libba went into the pack optimistically and came out misty optically."
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"Scotty Cummings alone in the square, jumping up and down and waving his arms like they're playing My Sharona"
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(From Melbourne vs Collingwood last year)
Healy: Word is this guy is the most reliable kick for goal in the
side. They say down at Collingwood if you had to have someone kicking
for your life, Tarkyn Lockyer would be the man.
Commetti: I'd prefer my mum
(silence)
Commetti: Not a great footballer, but at least she'd care.
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"Barlow to Batemen, the Hawks are attacking alphabetically."
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"The Magpies ought to be kicking themselves right now, but with their
luck, they'd probably miss."
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"Farmer may have an injury to his calf...hmmm, a farmer with a calf
problem."
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Dermott: And the ball spills free to Kickett...
Commetti: Troy Cook you mean?
Dermott: Yes...well, they do look rather alike.
Cometti: How so Dermott?
Dermott: (realising that sounded rather racist) Umm, well, they are
both..er..
Cometti: ..Midfielders, yes Dermott.
http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/dameedna.html
Excerpt, Vanity Fair (February 2003), p. 116, Ask Dame Edna:
Dear Dame Edna,
I would very much like to learn a foreign language, preferably French or Italian, but every time I mention this, people tell me to learn Spanish instead. They say, "Everyone is going to be speaking Spanish in 10 years. George W. Bush speaks Spanish."
Could this be true? Are we all going to have to speak Spanish?
Torn Romantic, Palm Beach
Dear Torn:
Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth reading except Don Quixote, and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La Mancha will take care of that. There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but I'd leave him on the intellectual back burner if I were you. As for everyone's speaking it, what twaddle! Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to?
The help? Your leaf blower? Study French or German, where there are at least a few books worth reading, or, if you're American, try English.
Dame Edna
re The Prisoner- it's been awhile, but I think I remember people bringing up comparisons to this and LOM, possibly both versions, but anymore it seems there is always someone coming around calling a new show just a rehashed idea from before. They aren't necesarrily wrong, but it gets old listening to it. There has been a saying around for many years now 'There are no new ideas in Hollywood.' Problem is that if you start stripping every show, movie, book, etc down to barest plot points, of course you're going to see a lot of similarities. Also, people create what sells, and there is just some stuff that stands the test of time.
re standardised testing- don't know what study the caller is refering to, but do agree with it not doing as intended. At my first school it wasn't a big push, but when we moved it go a lot worse. As I got older, it got even more ridiculous. Being in higher level courses was the only thing that kept me out of actual classes that were supposed to help teach the kids how to take the tests. As it was our teachers were required to go over certain bits in the week leading up to testing. Other thing about standarised testing: a HUGE waste of time. Takes over a week to get it done around here because they don't want to stress the kids by making them just get it done and over with. And during this time the teachers are supposed to go light on the work loads and absolutely no homework. There are some that even let kids bring in pillows so that they can take naps in their classes after the testing is done for the day, which anymore is only a couple of hours, including breaks.
re True Blood- find it getting worse by the week. Maybe I would be okay with it if I hadn't read the books, but just finding it duller and duller. The books are first person, so I can understand adding more perspectives to make it more intricate, but these people lead the most screwed up lives around, and it is getting old. It would be one thing if a couple characters were always having something happen to them, but it is constant with all of the major players. The last ep of the season is on Sunday. Will watch that one, and probably not bother picking it up again.
re FTA vs premium- it seems that a lot of shows that are on premium over here are FTA in other countries, which for lack of better terminology, really sucks. Then they don't really bother bringing anything over from other countries and putting it on FTA. The little that is on the public station over here is very unreliable, almost like what you've described the tv line up over there is like. The public station will start airing, but our local one is terrible about taking up a bunch of air time with fundraising. Might be happier with the channel if there was more programming and less bloody fundraising. Like to see the numbers to see if they actually make back what it costs them to do the fundraising.
re accents- as for Aussie vs New Zealand, it's rare you hear either of them over here. Usually if they need an accent for a show they get an American to do a bad version of a real one, and because we never hear the real thing, no one can tell how bad it truely is. There are only two times I can remember hearing authentic Aussie or Kiwi accents. The first was on one of those international house search shows. It was an Aussie couple looking to buy a place in New Zealand. The other time was a show that tries to prove/disprove legends and whatnot went to New Zealand to look for a giant extinct bird. They had some locals on camera, and then one of the crew is from New Zealand, and she spoke a few words with a full accent.
edit: Forgot about these, but someone just turned tv on. We have a restraunt chain over here called Outback, which is just a steakhouse. The most common Australian accent we here is this. Have serious doubts it's real, but suppose it is possible. Here's a sample
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tswvz_cG9LY
As for American/Canadian, there is not a whole lot of difference. The main difference is the 'ou' sound. Most Canadians tend to draw it out more in their speech than most Americans. There are some home search shows over here that are shown on a channel dedicated to home searches, improvement, etc that are filmed primarily in Canada, and they rarely tell you what city they are in. It is always guess work to figure out it they are still in Canada or if they crossed over. There is part of America, the northern midwest, that talks the same as Canadians, though. That 'Don't cha know', Dudley Do Right type accent that is considered sort of classic Canadian. I think a lot of it has to do with there being a long time interaction, plus a mostly dominating French and British start to both countries. Like several countries, different accents tend to be stronger in the more rural areas, whereas the urban ones are losing a lot of the more dramatic distinguishing characteristics. Seen a couple clips from shows where they are talking to people on London streets and the ones that have been in the area their whole lives barely sound British.
re commentators- Think the best known one over here would be Madden, who did football, don't know if he still does it. At one point I know he was recognizable to fans. Radio personalities tend to have a more personalized style than tv, but usually they are tied in with a team's network, so it is the fans of that team that get to know them. At the high school I went to, we use to have a teacher that did the announcing for football, and I think basketball, games that had a really good voice for it. If he ever wanted to get out of teaching he could probably do that. As for Roy & H.G., from what I've seen, they seem more comedian that what I'd really call commentators, but I tend to use commentator and announcer interchangably.
edit: Pretty sure this is the football announcer you sent that clip about. One of our insurance companies hired him for a commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fXsfAeqimY
Funny quotes from Dennis Commetti. We don't get stuff like that. Everyone is supposed to be completely serious, no real jokes, etc. Usually don't even get slip ups since they've been taught from the beginning that they must be serious. Sometimes the people that do in studio commentating at like pre-game, halftime, or post game are a little more relaxed, but still nothing like that.
I can see sport announcers sitting down to do this. We don't have quite the problems like this, but we're getting football players from some of the pacific islands, Samoa especially, and listening to them try and pronounce some of those can be funny. Of course, there are times I don't think the announcers pay any attention at all. From 2006-2008 the quarterback for my college team had the last name Daniel, no s. Think the only broadcasters that called him Daniel were the team radio announcers.
Did find the first one funnier. Announcing funny with the second one even though didn't understand anything about what happened in the supposed game.
re IT crowd-As usual, once I started watching one vid, I started clicking on ones on the side. Found these to be entertaining. First one, I bet I could actually find people that also bought that the box is the internet, which makes it even better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAUyaELfwBo&feature=related
This one, I think I would just start roasting marshmallows since the fire seems content to burn in one place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBfxjSFAxQ&feature=related
re sketch shows- If MAD TV is still in production, it is a crappy time slot over here. Know they used to have reruns on at a decent time on some other channels, but that seems to have been done away with. Starting sometime this month, I think, a cartoon channel over here is going to start running MAD cartoons at around 5pm. Looks like it is going to be animated versions of some of their comics. Other than MAD and SNL, most sketch shows stopped airing a long time ago. Think actress/comedian Carol Burnett had one, and Dick Van Dyke, but they were shows that haven't been on for years.
re Dame Edna piece- Vanity Fair is not a place I would expect this type of humour, but if the outraged person has been a long time reader, she obviously hasn't paid very close attention. They must just sit on her bookshelf for apperances. Can't really take the protestor seriously, though. She makes a point of saying Ivy League degrees and she is from New York City. Ivy Leaguers are an uppity group, and New Yorkers are an uppity group. Have someone who 3x Ivy Leaguer and lives in New York, I probably wouldn't be able to stand being in the same room as them. Then she mentions 'admiring Isabel Allende and Sandra Cisneros' as great writers. I've had to read both, plus some other Latino writers for school. Cisneros wrote the book I had mentioned before with the vignettes, and Allende took a book that seemed to hold promise, went and threw a bunch of junk in, and then did a quick wrap up. Neither would make my list of great writers. Had to double check, and Garcia-Marquez was another one we had to read. Again, wasn't the greatest book. Would put it before Allende or Cisneros, though. There was one we read by Juan Rulfo that was much better. Took a second read to fully appreciate it, but was a much better story. People like the protestor always make me wonder if they are just going along with what everyone else says or if they really believe what they write/say. I fully believe that just because someone else says a person is a great storyteller, doesn't make it true, and if I walk away from a book wishing I could get that time of my life back, I don't considered it good.
With the second piece, I love how neither of the guys can keep a straight face.
re Portsmouth- talented guy. Love the song. Very catchy. Know I'm going to find myself humming it and then trying to figure out where it came from.
re ventriloquists- Jeff Dunham is the big one on comedy central. I think it around four years ago, a ventriloquist won America's Got Talent. He does impersonations and singing mostly. Part of his prize was a show in Las Vegas; think he added some comedy to that. Found Strassman pretty good. The fun thing about ventriloquists is that they can get away with pretty much anything just because it is a dummy's mouth that is moving.
re Kangaroo clip- the guy in the mascot suit is a brave man to keep going back after the kangaroo starts going after him. Lucky for them things didn't get out of control.
re Lynch- just the latest guy to be made famous from youtube. There is a singer that the teen girls are going nuts for that was found online by some music producer. It's like the blog people that get famous. The internet has definately changed how talent can be discovered. This guy at least seems to deserve it. Decent voice and funny lyrics. Reminds me a little of some of Adam Sandler's songs, but much better.
re NFL- how sad is it that that is AFL goes to retire? Though after running around unprotected, the pads probably seem like a cake walk. Much less chance of major injury. How long is the AFL season? NFL seems to keep getting longer. Pre-season starts in August and then the Super Bowl is some time in February. Went to youtube because I couldn't remember if there were any pads or not, and after seeing most of this, I just can't understand how anyone would willing go and do this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9lwkzms-f4
re torrents- (thought I'd bring it over here instead of doing pms and posts) Tried doing torrents. Think I got one to work. Was looking for a Brit series, something like 14 eps to the whole thing, and was only able to find 10. Should of just gotten the dvds. What I did just so I could see the rest of it. Think I still have the torrent software on my computer- need to get rid of it. Also, with streaming it doesn't clog up the computer with files I can't find. If I want it permanently I'll get the discs.
2146 words.
re The Prisoner - will watch the finale on Saturday...see how it handles the mystery. > Saw the final ep (?)...I liked it...probably doesn't REALLY make sense, but it kind of makes sense...in a way. Could be scope for a further series or so, but reasonably happy with it as it stands...questions, sure, but fine by me.
I'd say that these kind of scenarios date back thousands of years...to the Sceptics. Descartes gave it a reboot some centuries ago. Putnam, I think, gave it another reboot some decades ago. As for popular culture, not sure, but it's the kind of thing you maybe would have expected The Twilight Zone to tackle. Maybe movies have covered this ground earlier in the past too? I tend to like many films in this genre...e.g. Dark City, The 13th floor, Total recall and Matrix etc.
Re standardised testing, maybe the following article alludes to the elements I'd heard about - but maybe there are other elements I've forgotten - you don't have to read it, but I'll quote just a little bit from it below:
http://bit.ly/cINK7V
edit in...just saw this story today (01/10/10):
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/seven-schools-in-naplan- cheating-20101001-16026.html
"In her book "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education", Ravitch also argues that the accountability measures introduced in New York narrowed the curriculum, forced teachers to teach to tests and saw schools refuse to enrol weaker students.
Similar measures are now being adopted in Australia...
When our schools are asked to imitate education initiatives overseas, we should all take a good hard look at the available evidence to ensure we will be taking a step forward, not backwards".
Some of that overlaps with what you say. Have heard stories here too about teachers 'encouraging' weak students to call in sick the day of the tests. Hmm.
re True Blood...have no idea if/when that will screen on free to air here. Alerted to return of V.D. by posters on bus shelters here recently. I was just thinking about the kiddies...the poster is quite sexual...the three main players in a threesome. Can't find an image online of that...but bad vamp licking her neck and good vamp really close to her face too. Must be getting old. I'm reminded of Roy and HG (those comedic sports commentators here) always banging on about stuff to bring the kiddies into watching sports...like the athletes playing nude. Hmm.
re fundraising tv - I watch a lot ABC TV here over here. They're tax payer funded. Sort of like PBS, I'm guessing...though I don't really know what PBS is like over there. National broadcaster here. Same deal for SBS TV, which is more culturally diverse. Britain had, or maybe still has a tax on tv to help fund broadcasters like the BBC. In the US I suppose that this would all be viewed as rather Bolshie. Free to air tv here is so crap, I don't know what I'd watch if the ABC wasn't here. FTA news...stories about cats stuck up in trees or whatnot. Sheesh. Channel 31 is a new addition to tv here...some years old now...maybe analagous to cable networks over there, but FTA here. They've only recently gone digital here...which is good. Dodgy reception though, still. Hmm.
re Aussie accent and Outback...gee, that sounds pretty genuine for me...that scares me! I'm worried you'd hear Robin Williams do his thing and think that he's nailed it! Mentioned Meryl Streep in "Evil angels" here before. Generally she was excellent in that, but made what I thought might have been some howlers. But the character she played was originally from New Zealand, which made me think that Meryl didn't make howlers but was actually accurate. So, don't know enough about the real person to say whether Meryl stuffed up a few times or nailed it.
Speaking of accents...Flight Of The Conchords did go over this at times...there's probably better clips to choose, but I find this one easily and it illustrates the point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRdg1MOYxHo
Found another one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy1cOn5vGc4
Oh here's a good one...I think...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs_rXxi0zhM
Wish I could find the one where they are in a police station...that was good.
I've seen the American comedian live here a few times. I think it's time we start seeing other people...saw Demetri Martin here some years back...damn, he's good...want to see him more! He had a sketch comedy show called "Important things" which I liked too.
re American/Canadian...I have heard about the "oot and a boot" stock phrase from Canadians. The little Canadian I hear doesn't seem to be that extreme. The classic New Zealand phrase is "fush and chups" (fish and chips). From what I understand Britain and the US has a huge variety of accents. Australia has three kind of accents, but they're not geographic...you hear them everywhere. I suppose that the more cultured accents...either from Australia and New Zealand or American and Canada would sound pretty similar. There is meant to be a mid-Atlantic, but apparently that's been debunked...haven't gone into researching this though!
re Roy and H.G. not commentators...actually, they used to do live calls of rugby league games and whatnot on one ABC radio station. Didn't tend to listen to that station, so missed them there. There best stuff was on the Sydney Olympics highlights show...they would no doubt have added commentary to footage which took their fancy...would not have been live, I don't think. Like I said before, which I had a link for that piece on the Greco-Roman wrestling...Barry White music playing to homo-erotic commentary! I'm pretty sure that this was the music they'd play to the footage (just the start of the song):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0I6mhZ5wMw
Oh, as pay back for that Flight Of The Conchords sketch I posted above, I thought I better even the score...here's Roy & H.G. on New Zealand's performance at the Sydney Olympics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QqqNdS93uw
re sports commentators...have heard of England's John Arlott, who covered cricket. Like Commetti, he had a nice turn of phrase...for one match featuring a South African and someone with Irish heritage he said "Rice bowls and Paddy fields". The equivalent of a pitcher in cricket is the bowler. They 'bowl' a set of six 'balls'. One unfortunate batsman got hit in the gonads by a bowler. Arlott commented "[batter's name, I think] to face. One ball remaining". Nicely ambiguous...the batter has - jokingly - one testicle left, and the bowler has one ball to complete his set of six balls.
re finding the first cricket commentary parody funnier...actually, I'd say that second record had a "B" side which the You Tuber didn't upload. From that I remember the name "Half his hand missing"...a pun on something like the real name "Amin Hafeez" or whatever. That Indian bowler had a deformity or something...one of his hands was...incomplete. Not sure if it was a birth defect or what. Funny, but sort of cruel. Less cruel was something like "Was he a mad rooter?" from that clip you liked. The real name would have been something like "Wasim Amruda" or whatever. The joke maybe doesn't travel so well...as the pun is the Australian phrase for "shagger"...i.e. the pun wouldn't work for Americans unless it was "Was he a mad shagger?"...which doesn't really sound like the player's name...so, another fail there. Just by the by, cricket is making the news here and elsewhere for all the wrong reasons.
re IT Crowd...think I mentioned them yonks ago in this thread. To the effect that like "Nighty night" I stuck through the first series and was really rewarded with killer follow up series. Those clips you posted...been seeing bits or all of them on repeats recently...quite recently...a few weeks ago. Actually enjoyed this bit from the show last week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Lh3O3KeCQ
Jen mentions Friendface. Aussie guy Micallef had a bit where he mentioned SpaceBook and MyFace, which I enjoyed. As for your clips...you had a bit from the first series...it's not the first time I've seen Mossy reciting a jingle for a phone number. If there really is an emergeny number with a jingle, you have to feel sorry for them...Australia has a 3 digit number like yous. I wonder how many stupid Australians dial the American number because they always hear it on US tv shows. re the internet one...yeah, I love how it seems Jen is onto them once they mention The Elders Of The Internet! That guy who beat his lover is a hoot too...very wooden and larger than life...might have come in 2nd series...or 3rd. My favourite ep is the one where Moss and the other guy have to pretend that they're disable...had me in hysterics. You really should get the dvds...seeing clips isn't the same.
Around the same time as the one you posted (it's edited by the uploader):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUA9oNCubgk
Like this one too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l4r10MOH70
Oh...I'll add this one...Jen's tech savy advice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxUZMjXkYKc
Speaking of wooden/larger than life characters...like this scene from Blackadder...the line about the canoe, I mean:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKfbSHW9uGA
You mentioned US sketch shows being long gone...I mentioned Demetri Martin's "Important things" as a good recent example...it's classic sketch comedy.
Here's a link to a You Tube for him...just a random clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psuf9AZIAxY
re Dame Edna...I wouldn't mind reading Marquez ONE OF THESE DAYS. Pretty sure that the brains behind Edna is a cultural elitist themselves. Found it funny when Edna chastised her interviewer for asking a reflective question as it wasn't 'that kind of a show'! Actually, Edna got me watching Ally McBeal again...found it insufferably be cute so I stopped watching early on until Edna appeared. Can't find clips but loved the bits where Edna's character in the unisex toilet or whatever and they said - to a man - that one of them was in the wrong toilet. Funny. Also liked the line Edna's character gave to Ally...about her character looking just like Ally does now...Ally can look forward to looking like Edna in the future...omg!
re Mike Oldfield - actually, Portsmouth would actually be a guilty pleasure! Seems a bit daggy to admit to liking it! He's best known for Tubular Bells...bought that a few years ago...not a huge fan of it, though I do like the piece used in the movie The Exorcist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYmIKcP7Nbc
I'm also partial to these songs:
Moonlight shadow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt8d3Shlfrg
Family man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj9GcoE3MvM
I think Hall & Oates had the most famous version of the latter song.
re You Tube sensations...you mean Justin Bieber? Only recently found out that he has the most viewed music video on You Tube. He must hold the record for saying "Baby" in one song though! Saw that song on cable, where I was eating. Never heard him before...only heard of him.
re AFL - reverse problem to NBA...AFL keeps adding teams for a price, but doesn't have more home and away games. Handicap race. There used to be 12 teams in the VFL and there were 22 games. Game went national and now has 16 teams, but still 22 games. Next year 18 teams...guessing still 22 games. Crazy. NBA crazy too...looks like you play each team 3 times. Crazy. Wanna trade your bonus games for our skinny season? Season starts around March and end September. We're in finals now. That You Tube had really bad resolution.
I tend to remember the really cowardly hits on players. You need to be brave to play AFL, but some hits are really gutless...couldn't really find decent You Tubes, but a bad one was Rod Grinter's hit on Terry Wallace...Terry's jaw was pushed into his head or something...out for months, I think. Then there was the Leigh Matthews hit on Neville Bruns...again, serious damage to the guy's jaw. Oddly, when those two teams played afterwards, the victim got booed by the opposition side! Iffy You Tube below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r81_FLjfNOg
edit in - I read about a tackle in a rugby league game here...found the You Tube...nice quality...recentish game...deemed legal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-naar5dHus
Feel sorry for those Irish Gaelic footballers who play our AFL players in a hybrid game...it's the only way either game gets international matches. Gaelic football doesn't have physical contact. Guess how our boys play the Irish? See your video for a clue. Think the Irish have scrapped playing us...for now. Good on them. I wish they'd done it sooner.
As for NFL as a home for retired AFL players...funny, ay? Give us your sick, your tired and your old AFL players! You've got some big names in AFL playing for you now...Rocca and Graham. Bennet in the past. There was talk of absolute legend (and dickhead) Wayne Carey playing NFL. I would have hated to see that. He was a he-man in AFL and doing it all...why take more money from NFL from doing bugger all? I mean our AFL players are like waterboys there, right? They only come onto the field of play for a minute...have one kick and go back off...right? I dunno. Another dickhead - Brendan Fevola - was mentioned today as a possible NFL candidate. He might get axed from his team for another dickhead display, so he could be looking for a new career. With that rugby union player, Johah Lomu, it was slightly different...assuming he would have had a lot of game time and played a different role. Still issue of why give away a great international career for a parochial game only Americans care about. Sometimes these AFL players to punt in NFL may just be spurious stories, I'm guessing...something to sell newspapers here. Ben Graham was a star AFL player...he could play either end of the field...defending the best goal kicker or being the best goal kicker for his team. Must suck being an NFL punter by comparison! Pays well though!
re torrents...deleted your PM re ninja alternative...ninja was good...the site you linked to sucks for me...maybe because I'm in Australia. Maybe Moss would know a good site? You know that IT Crowd bluff football lingo clip I linked to? Tried looking up the site Moss was looking at...someone's constructing it!
You get funny quotes from sports people...have heard some by English footballers and managers...and commentators:
http://english-fa-betting.com/football-articles/funny-football-quotes/
“And with 4 minutes gone, the score is already 0-0.”
-Ian Dark
me - that was quick!
“I would have given my right arm to be a pianist.”
-Sir Bobby Robson
me - if he only had a right arm, that might not be do-able!
“Celtic manager Davie Hay still has a fresh pair of legs up his sleeve.”
-John Greig
“One accusation you can’t throw at me is that I’ve always done my best.”
-Alan Shearer
http://www.ave-it.net/funny_player_quotes.htm
'I couldn't settle in Italy - it was like living in a foreign country.'
- Ian Rush
Interviewer: 'Would it be fair to describe you as a volatile player?'
David Beckham: 'Well, I can play in the centre, on the right and occasionally on the left side.'
'I always used to put my right boot on first, and then obviously my right sock.' - Barry Venison
'I definitely want Brooklyn to be christened, but I don't know into what religion yet.' - David Beckham
I have heard of Yogi Bera...he's meant to have had some funny quotes, right? I probably know his name for seeing some quotes of his in this context.
Words: 2443 (damn...thought this might be way shorter...make that 2523)
So with being about 5 minutes from done with my response, Safari decided to freeze up which resulted in a force quit and my response being eaten. Since I don't remember the original post word for word, especially my long, most likely boring education rant, some of this is going to be paraphrased.
re education- what it comes down to, three things need to be looked at. The students, the teachers, and the parents. While there are kids that need extra help, some of them are lazy and don't want to do the work. There needs to be real consequences for that instead of just pushing them through the system and letting them get away with it. It helps no one. As for teachers, there was a report I saw that said that US teachers were being drawn from the lowest achieving 30% of bachelor degree recievers. Something needs to be done to get smarter people willing to go into teaching. Can't get smart kids if the teachers don't know what they're supposed to be teaching. Instead of just getting a general education degree, I'd rather the teachers have degrees in the subject they are meant to be teaching. Finally, the parents need to support the teachers and schools, and realize that their kid is not always an angel. If the school says their is a problem, parents need to work with the school and not just say the school needs to fix it. Schools and teachers can't do a whole lot if the parents won't back them at home.
As for the standarised testing, it really, really needs to stop being the main focus. And as far as cheating goes, the supposedly special needs kids over here not only get extra time to take the tests, but they also have an aid sit through the test with them. Supposedly the aid only reads the test, makes sure the kid understand what it is saying, and then writes down the answer. Amazingly on theses tests, some of these special kids, that can barely pass a regualr classroom test (which they also take with an aid), and have an aid for the standarised test, do really well. Yeah, like there isn't some kind of cheating going on there.
re Prisoner genre- if done well, it is probably one of the best genres, because it usually leaves you wanting more. If done poorly, it comes across as lazy writing because the writers either didn't want to anger anyone with definative answers or just don't want to be bothered with answering everything themselves.
re True Blood- have officially gave up on. Stuck with it through three seasons, and by the end of the third was fed up, especially the way they ended the third.
re TVD- haven't been able to watch it as close since the new season has started as I would like, but that might be a good thing. Usually can pick up on what is going on with watching less than half an ep, and when I do get to see most of it, I find myself feeling like it is just dragging on. As for the posters, the ones over here have always seemed to suggest at a hotter, steamier, borderline threesome than what the show actually has, at least in my opinion. Ever since Damon stopped being the mystery bad boy it lost the little edge it had in that department.
re PBS- to my understanding, there is no government money involved. Maybe some of the educational programmes produced for them have some kind of grant, but don't think the channels do. I'm pretty sure there is some main PBS headquarters, but each major city has a PBS station that is run independently, and spends a lot of air time asking for money and doing tv auctions.
re accents- had the misfortune of seeing Robin Willaims the other week attempting to do an Aussie accent. Could only tell what it was when he started saying something about the outback and kangaroos. First it sounded like no accent, then it was higher London, then lowbrow English, then I don't know what. It was just all together bad. As for US accents/dialects, tried to find a good map to show different areas, and was unable to. Found one site that did research and said there wer about 8 different ones, which I think is too low. It said that there were about 5 in the Northeast, which sounds low, and then 3 for the rest of the country which I know is wrong. From the crappy map it showed, it looks like they just bunched any differences in the middle of the country together. Should have checked who did the study. A lot of the times the coasts think the middle of the country is all the same. There are a lot of them that are shocked to find out not everyone in the middle is not a farmer bumpkin.
re FotC- enjoyed the clips. edit: So for some reason I thought it was a drama movie. Saw two seasons on sale the other day, so obviously wrong on both fronts. Don't know why I was under the impression it was a movie or a drama.
re IT Crowd- not all of the clips were working. One said that someone claimed copyright on it, and another said that the uploader had taken it down. Had seen one clip where Jen was in a toliet trying to get Moss(?) to explain what IT was. The one clip you provided now makes it clear as to what was going on.
re Mike Oldfield- have a copy of Tubular Bells that I like better that I got off of a compilation cd of horror themes for Halloween. The intro isn't quite as long, and the other bits are quite as gratting on the ears. The others are okay. Type of thing to have on in the background. Kind of up happy music as long as you don't listen to the lyrics too carefully.
re AFL- think saw part of the final on a sport station over here real late one night. Think they were in Melbourne. The NBA is just insane when it comes to their season. Think they spend more of the year playing than not. And it seems like over half their season is a playoff, which doesn't make sense, but I've never followed basketball. Get absolutely no enjoyment of watching it at any level.
For the second YT, there is no way any player in a game over here could get away with that, and the instgator would be booed and name called for being an idiot, for such an obvious shot to the head. Like how the announcers were even questioning it the guy going down was hit in the face. How much more obvoius does it need to get taking a shoulder square on in the face?
After seeing some of the tackles and cases of deliberatly trying to hurt another player, I've decided you don't need to just be brave to play AFL, but have a good dose of insanity as well, with a dash of hoping you don't make to an age where you're body will remind you hourly of every injury sustained in youth.
re Gaelic football- how do you play football without contact? It isn't football without contact, even soccer, which is supposed to be non contact, has some nasty hits. Non contact football should only be found in recreational flag football, not at the pro levels.
re Yogi Berra- he was a baseball player and then manager. Yeah, quotes in a similar vein to those you listed. Here's some of hist zingers on Wikiquote:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra
words: If the slider bar at the side of the reply box is anything to go by, this is probably only around half the length of the original. Damn evil browser. 1314 (and the word count proves it's short) 1331
My sympathies. It happens to me too. I try and copy long posts as I go into my email notepad when I can...annoying when you chance it. You could try doing the same thing on a word doc too...so if Firefox freezes you can still access Word and save it for later. Oddly, I often say in my replies when I lose my post that I'm being brief coz I'm steaming...and then proceed to be just as long winded as I ever was!
re education...what do you think should be taught? Over here, English is the subject that everyone takes. Personally, I think everyone should do a maths subject that can take you into a maths degree at uni...none of this business maths stuff. Don't think that English is that important. I'd be happy if subjects like philosophy were core, along with maths. Some history would be good. And a minor in English or something...or film studies...some such. Mentioned before my belief that teachers should teach to pass the students in subjects like maths. Ideally you'd have kids being competent in the core disciplines. Over here there's also debate about language learning...apparently 'whole of language' learning has become fashionable...or whatever it is called. Those into phonetic teaching of English may be making a comeback. Good idea, perhaps. Once you get into later years, not sure if English is that good...once you can read to a good standard, a subject like philosophy and history would be good for dealing with ideas and arguments. I'd probably add a science/social science into my 'core' disciplines too.
re teacher pay...smart people want to make lots of money. Teaching doesn't pay well. Don't know about special needs kids' tests. Maybe they shouldn't be tested?
re FotC...yeah, you edited your comment before I could disabuse you! Were you maybe thinking of "Flight of the phoenix". I remember seeing the original as a kid on tv. A remake made a few years ago. I didn't link to the clip of Arj Barker saying that New Zealanders just made up the language as they went along!
re Prisoner genre...it's popular in Hollywood now, for years. Pretty metaphysical kind of speculations. Don't tend to find them coherent...writers over-reaching themselves, perhaps. But that's probably the nature of the material. Like I said, initially loved the ending to LOM original, but on reflection, not so much. We've discussed this before.
re vampires...well, not sure when or if True Blood will be free to air. Bit of an 'oh yeah' moment for me with VD re werewolves. Writers don't take themselves too seriously though. You a vampire freak? Last week I saw Let Me In...loved the original (Let the right one in) and only Chloe Moretz from Kick-Ass made me want to check out the remake. Didn't mind, but not as good as the original. Saw Daybreakers some months back. Shot in Australia. That was ok. Years ago, as a kid, I saw Aussie movie "Thirst", which had some imagery which stuck with me for all these years. Reminded of it again when I saw docu on Aussie genre films a couple of years back "Not quite Hollywood". Some stunning imagery in that. Will want to check it out again sometime. Dracula 2000, I think, was good only for some novel vampire lore. The Let Me In movies were also good re that too.
re PBS...years ago I'd heard about community cable channels in the US. We didn't have pay tv back then. Only in the last decade or whatever, have community free to air channels come here. They're digital now, which is good..."they're"...hmmm..."it" more like. I stick to watching the publicly funnded ABC for news...commercial news is just basically stories about cats caught up trees...not really very interesting for me. SBS is also government funded...more a focus on world news...don't tend to watch but if I see a bit of it I'll wonder why the ABC isn't covering stories that they run. Maybe the US could do with an institution like ABC TV? Governments of both persuasions here don't like it when they get criticised by it. Unlike the BBC, which is funded by a licence fee, I think, the ABC here is captive to what the government of the day deems to be a worthy amount to spend on its budget...lots of budget cuts over the years.
re accents - sort of familiar with the notion of diversity in the US. Probably said that Australia has three types of accent...broad (Paul Hogan et al), educated (?), and whatever the middle one is called. Not region based accents. New England a bit close to Australian English or English English. We'd both say "khaki" for "Car key". And there's one cartoon which I can identify as having New England characters, I think...is it Non Sequitur? Something like that...
Have often heard how Dick Van Dyke, in one of those Disney movies did a bad Cockney accent. Robin Williams probably much worse with Aussie accent. Speaking of Cockney...was looking for this a while back...remember Spike Milligan? You know David Attenborough's docus?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyPOb-cRv1I
Previously linked to The Comedy Company sketches (Col'n Carpenter etc)...that show used to have a character called David Rabbitborough...similar kind of humour there.
Not sure how many IT Crowd clips you couldn't see and which ones...the one with Jen in the toilet was a scene which was edited out of a clip I posted...it was funny too, but maybe the context was confusing...did you see how it looked like Moss (the dark skinned one, I think) looked like he was blowing the boss? Think that's part of the scene you found yourself.
This one work? re Bullies/hurtful comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu9TsJlcvzc
This one? re Google:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWM6xhYg2dQ
I looked at the slightly longer clip...it's in German!
re Oldfield and Halloween...which cd do you have? Maybe give us a Wiki or Amazon link to it. Don't remember thinking Exorcist bit too long on Oldfield's original album. I've got the Halloween soundtrack album, which I like. Might have to check out more soundtracks. Nerf Herder's theme for Buffy is good...not scary, but good.
re basketball...when I ran my own oddly scored fantasy basketball league, I took an interest in things. But the amount of games always seemed too much. It seems like each team plays every other team 3 teams. It should be twice. Aussie rules footy should be twice too, but it's more a handicap race...there should be 30 rounds of games but we only have 22. Things will get worse next year...should be 34 rounds but I'm guessing they'll only have 22 still. NBA has best of 7 for finals right? We have elimination games...BUT, still a handicap...best regular season teams get second chances early on in the finals. Hmmm.
re rugby league tackle...it can get even uglier in rugby league...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuAEl37q1Ng
If someone had their neck broken in such a tackle, I'd like to see them get years in prison. Same goes for those ugly Aussie rules tackles...but that never happened...even when a guy had his jaw impacted into his mouth.
re tackles in Gaelic football...we don't follow that here...just assuming that they don't have tackling or physical contact. It might happen, but it's probably penalised. Apparently netball was created as a misunderstanding of a diagram for basketball. It's a no contact sport too...but contact does occur. Australia is the world's superpower in this sport...most popular sport for girls here. New Zealand has always been a bit of a thorn in our side...been beating us recently.
edits in - speaking of data loss...my PVR got glitchy. Was thinking of replacing it. Only reason to keep it disappeared...had quite a few programmes recorded on it, including some I had yet to see. One day the list disappeared...but the hard drive info made it seem there was still content on their...just nothing showing. Did a defrag, which meant if anything was recoverable, it wasn't anymore. Oh well...had that ep of IT Crowd on it which I loved...the one where Roy and Moss pretend to be disabled...had me in hysterics. Anyway, maybe good that my PVR died...I'd manually turn it on and off...this became harder later...and when my PVR was off, it wouldn't wake up sometimes for my recordings. And if I left it on, I'm guessing the hard drive would disable storage as it filled up, so maybe it wouldn't record anyway. Anyway, I bought a Topfield Toppro...twin tuner, quad recording...haven't tried that yet. Got HDTV...my tv is SD, but new digital channels are HD, so I wanted to access them...my old recorder couldn't do that. Paid a bit for it too...oh well. Does that beat your data loss?
- Channel surfed John Safran radio show where he talked to a 'mainstream' American film maker. Guy said that voice man for that Outback Steakhouse or whatever it is called in the US was not Australian...seemed to find the accent fake. Hmm. Accent ok by me, re the You Tube you gave. Film-maker saying stuff like Hollywood is all left-wing and not mainstream, hence movies with America as bad guys. He's trying to redress that. He mentioned a controversial movie or something called "Machete"...might have been his movie. Don't know much about it. Guy also saying that Hollywood movies are about ideology, not profit...presumably his more 'mainstream' movies (probably low budget) appeal to a wider (patriotic?) audience and hence make more money (by ratio or something). He gave as an example of a Hollywood movie which had 'mainstream' values as The Blindside. Only caught the show in passing, but interesting. I've enjoyed some of Safran's work on tv...edgy...bit of a trouble maker/joker. Jewish Australian. Didn't watch his last tv show about Race Relations. He blacked up as an African American and went to the US. God knows what they made of it. Did get a laugh out of an earlier series of his...he pitched his idea for a Mormon movie to a US company which deals in these...his teaser which he showed them had Mormons on bikes doing stunts or stuff. Good stuff. Bingo...found it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9g9-0zeyY
- Might mention this...talked about interstitial content on ABC TV years ago (like that Mike Oldfield instrumental)...maybe Shaun The Sheep qualifies too...well, occasionally I come across the following cartoon on that station...not sure if it a regular or not...here are two cartoons I liked in the series...not sure if you get them over there...French, I think (generally I've tended to catch the eps with the spider and the fly...thought it was just those two, but it's not:
Chewing gum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr2ydbK3fHc
Silence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEyzjD2OwM8
Words: 1765.
Well, I am going to try this through Word, see if it does any better. With luck it will paste okay into the reply box, and won’t constantly try to auto format.
Re education- In beginning education, I think being able to read and write correctly is a must. Personally, I was taught with phonetically to read, and find it still helps to this day with reading and spelling. I find that having that skill also helps with being able to pick up sounds and spellings in foreign languages. Grammar is another thing that needs to be taught. Over here at least, especially younger people have started to use text speak in school work and in a few cases people think it is okay to use at work in an office type setting. Personally think there needs to be a line between work and street language. All you have to do is type any of the texting acronyms in a search engine to find how many different ways it can be taken, and there are always stories floating around of how people use them incorrectly. Read a story online a while back where a person sent LOL in a text to a friend whose dad had just died thinking that it stood for lot of love, not laugh out loud. Looking it up online, in some cases it can mean lots of love. Not the greatest example but it is the first that comes to mind. As for the more analytical English, had to sit through I don’t know how many years of it in school, and it did two things for me. The first isn’t that bad; we had to make an argument that something in the book illustrated this or that or meant this or that, etc, and support it with the text. So it did help me learn how to structure arguments to a degree. The second thing: have a much harder time enjoying books that I read because at some of the worst times the old teaching will pop up and point out some bs symbolism or foreshadowing or want to re-examine a paragraph in three different ways. Am I still capable of doing these things? Yes. Do I want to constantly be thinking of them when I want to relax? No, and unfortunately it has been drilled into me where I have a hard time turning it off without some effort.
When it comes to math, I’m torn how to go. People need to go through at least basic algebra so that they can be prepared for what they need in life. I think that business maths would serve a larger number people better. Start teaching earlier on what kids need to understand interest, mortgages, retirements, etc so that ideally when they start working (over here it is an average of 15 or 16) they start building an understanding early on of what is to come down the line. It would also help when the time comes to look at stocks or bank CDs, or buy a house/condo or decide to rent, etc there is not as much confusion and they can manage their money better. At the same time, from what I understand, people who enjoy math, usually start to like it once they hit pre-calculus or trig, and other maths that make everybody else want to shoot themselves instead of sitting through one class. If that was taken out too early, people wouldn’t find that interest. As someone who is terrible at numbers and always has been, I do think that if you required the type of math needed to go get a math degree at the uni level, you would lose more people out of the education system. Since a lot of the higher level math is not need for most things in life, I think that once a person knows they want nothing to do with it, it is a waste of time to force them to do it. There are still times that I’m amazed that I got through some of the math I had to take. It is also something that if you asked me to sit down and do it now, I would never be able to. Even after spending over twice as much time working on it in comparison to my other subjects, still never fully understood it.
As for physical sciences, there definitely needs to be an introduction to give kids a taste of at least biology, chemistry, and physics. Don’t know how it could be done, but wish they could figure a way to get more of the physical sciences in at the lower levels. First school I was at had some zoology and botany that they taught us, but once I moved they were nothing more than vocabulary words you heard now and again, no real study. Problem with physical sciences there are so many different ones that in school you hear nothing about, and then they wonder why no one is going into those fields, or it is such a short, dull blurb you wonder why anyone would want to do it.
Social sciences is another category that is a mess. There is just so much under it that it can be hard to figure out what is really needed. Some kind of current events class may be useful, incorporate history somehow. Over here we get a lot of repeat history, but only once got into the last 50 years or so, and that was a very fast gloss over so we could have some prep for the final IB test. The regular classes didn’t even get there. We seem to do a lot of ancient history, and then early American, usually getting to around 1880 or so. As for philosophy, maybe at the uni level, but don’t know how much good it would do before that.
All of the above is with the stipulation that you have teachers that can actually teach their subjects. In reality education has become such a mess, with more and more bull being added without paying attention to any underlying problems that I don’t know if anyone could really fix it any more.
Re testing- Think most of the testing period should be done away with as it doesn’t seem to do anything except waste money. As for exempting anyone from taking it, suppose it is possible, but the problem there is defining who is actually a special needs kid. There are so many of them that have figured out to play the system or their parents have pushed for them to be marked as a needs kid for some reason, even though they don’t need it. My mother had this one kid in class last quarter who would cry and throw a tantrum if he didn’t get his way. He was marked as a special needs kid. She told him she wasn’t going to put up with it, and what do ya’ know, he sat down, did the work, and stopped the tantrum. He isn’t a special needs kid, just a kid that no one every made him do something he didn’t want to do and as long as he made a big enough fit they said he didn’t have to do it just so they wouldn’t have to listen to him. It’s like the parents who have learned to tune out their screaming kids and won’t say anything when they are making a scene in public, or the ones that let their kids run wild around the store and if anyone else says anything in an effort to get the brats to behave, the parents cry foul. Everyone knows the system is royally screwed up, just no one with any kind of power wants to offend anyone by saying anything.
Re FotC- I think what happened was I saw a commercial a long time ago for it that was real brief and I was only paying half attention. Then I’ve seen it mentioned on the net, but the context wasn’t enough to really know much about the show, or it was mentioned on a more serious board. However it happened, I know have season 1 on DVD, waiting for me to watch it.
Re vampires- I don’t think I’d classify myself as a vampire freak. I’m not much into the blood and gore side of the genre and find myself easily bored with that side. In general I enjoy the supernatural genre. I get easily bored with realistic fiction and similar genres. A general rule of thumb I go by: if you could go sit on a park bench, or go into a neighborhood and conceivably see most of the plot played out in real life, I don’t see any point in reading the book or watching the movie. It’s like romantic comedies – can’t stand ‘em. And as for some of the more popular vamp stuff right now *cough*Twilight*cough* I don’t want to see anymore than I was subjected to with trailers and commercials. I got into the genre in my early teens, when supernatural stuff wasn’t really in again yet over here. At that point, there were some decent books out at the young adult level, some new, but most were probably leftovers from the last craze, but most of it had whatever creature they were dealing with have humanity and not be psychotic killing machines, which completely shaped how I see the genre. Within that though, I still am choosy about what I enjoy. Some of it is crap, and I’m not going to say it is good just because there’s a supe element. Those are the books that everyone seems to pick out and gives the genre a bad name. As I’ve gotten older I still read/watch supe stuff mostly with some sci-fi, though have even less patience with visual supe media just because it is more accessible and tends to shape views more. Still haven’t gotten a chance to see Let the Right One In. I don’t think the remake did very well over here. Heard about it for a couple of weeks, and then nothing.
edit- The Sci Fi (Syfy) channel over here is going to start airing an American version of Being Human. Has a ghost, werewolf, and vamp living together, just trying to fit in from what I understand. Have wanted to see the UK version for awhile now, but didn't have much luck online when I looked last time, and it was shown on BBC America (which I don't get), and the dvds I saw in store had 'as seen on BBCA' on them. I know BBCA cuts shows for length, and probably some content, so always leary of buying anything with that label. Kind of wish Syfy had gottent the rights for the original - they show the new BBC Merlin series (cut for time) - but they typically do a good job with their non-reality type shows, so I'm hopeful it will be good. Also, anything with the line 'We'll have full moon parties. We'll invite the neighbors over and eat them.' I figure I've got to give a chance. As long as the cast doesn't over act their rolls, it will hopefully be okay.
Re tv stations- I don’t see a government run/funded station working very well over here. Government can barely run itself, and it is questionable how good that is. Add to that they seem to try and subsidize everything that in the end some existing network would really be running it. Couldn’t see anything that would be on it to be worth watching either.
Re accents- think the Disney movie you’re thinking of is Mary Poppins. I’ve only seen the whole thing once; can’t say I much cared for it. There was one musical number with a bunch of chimney sweeps that wasn’t bad, but the rest found sort or ehh. From what I remember of Van Dyke’s character, the accent seemed to come and go. Maybe more of his own voice just thicker. Anyway, wasn’t very good. William’s Aussie accent is worse out of the two.
Reminds me of a new show over here called Undercovers. It’s about two ex-CIA agents that are married to each other, and the agency reactivates them. Suggestions from different scenes that there is a more sinister nature, but don’t pay that much attention to it. But, these characters travel all around the world for their different missions, and supposedly can blend in very well, accent and all. Well, apparently Hollywood is continuing to insult the American intelligence with horrible accents, though most people probably can’t tell how bad they are. There was one where they were in Ireland, and trying to do an Irish accent. I think it may be worse than William’s Aussie. What made it worse was the supporting characters were at least decent with their Irish accents, but the main characters were pathetic. Tried to find a clip on Youtube, but the only thing up are tv spots promoting the show. Just know that if they have a dialog coach that is telling them they sound good, the person needs to be fired. If they don’t have one, they desperately need to hire some.
Re The Cock A Knees vid- entertaining, but some of it I didn’t quite catch. There would be parts where he would be saying a word slowly, that is an obvious mock, that I’m just not familiar enough to pick up on the joke. Then there were a couple of times I plain couldn’t hear him either because of the laughing or just the volume of his voice.
Re IT clips- both of the ones you reposted I was able to get into before. None of the ones I saw were in German, so it must be one of the ones that was blocked.
Re Oldfield and Halloween- It’s a cheap compilation cd I picked up at one our midend department stores. Was the first disc I found that had some of the classic Halloween horror movie themes all complied into one disc, i.e. theme from Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street (original), a suite from The Omen, X-Files, the Twilight Zone, and some others. According to my ipod the disc was called Fright Night. Typed it in online and came up with results nothing close to what it is. It was probably a one off compilation made for that chain for just that year.
Re Buffy theme- the Nerf Herder version is the best I’ve heard. Have both the Buffy soundtracks that came out, and one of them has a version done by a band called The Breeders. Still good, but all the focus is on guitar with no organ (?) at the beginning or bell at the end. The Nerf Herder version is the only full length one I’ve heard, but, in my opinion at least, the tv cut is better than the full. Themes way too repetitive with too little movement in the full version.
Re basketball- I only know 3 things about basketball. 1- I hate watching it, in person or on television. 2- not a big fan of playing it in any kind of organized league. 3- don’t mind playing a street game now and again, but it gets old quickly
Re rugby- that is ridiculous. The only place you’d see something like that in sport over here is “professional” wrestling, WWE type stuff. As I’ve said before I think the guys that play that are nuts, but there really needs to be some safety rule about that. Still find it amazing in looking at the differences in what are legal moves between these similar sports. Rugby you can throw a guy head first into the ground and no one says boo about it, and over here in American football they are pushing for harsher regulations about helmet to helmet contact after some guys have suffered some nasty concussions.
Vid with some of the clearest helmet to helmet hits I was able to find, but definitely not the worst. Several have guys not getting up, but the camera angles just don’t allow for a clear shot. Usually another player is in the way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaDybGOIS9o
re data loss- you win. Never tried a DVR/PVR. Still using VCR to record off tv, but it have been years since I’ve tried to record anything with any kind of regularity, and most of the time if it got to the point where there were several eps backlogged I wouldn’t catch up anyways. Couple anime series I still have sitting around on tapes, though I really should see if I can find them on DVD. Last time I looked for the hell of it they were getting hard to find. The tapes are okay, but the quality due to the tape speed used, the number of times it was reused, and the machine used is pretty lousy.
Re Mormon movie- easily one of the most laughable things I’ve ever seen.
Re Hollywood/John Safran- While Hollywood has pretty much since its inception has been considered left wing, if they weren’t plugged into the mainstream, nothing would sell. If movies shown over here, particularly with the current climate, had America as the villain, don’t think it would do very well main stream. Maybe the critics or snobby movie buffs would be into it, saying it challenged some kind of idea or some other reason no one really cares about, but the everyday person wouldn’t care for it. I remember seeing tv spots for Machete. If I remember right, it was in Mexico and some kind of US agents had killed a guy’s family or something. Then the whole movie was about him going around and getting revenge by killing all the ones responsible. Only reason I remember it is because of a line in the trailers by Cheech Marin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te0dsy0_Yaw
Not the original trailer I was thinking of, but has the line, though in the one I’m thinking of you don’t hear the other guy say bro and then correct it to padre, and 10 seconds I’ve never seen before. Think this is a movie done by a producer/director/writer called Robert Rodriguez (sp?). He does a lot of these movies where there is only a very little plot, and most of the movie is about gory action scenes. He did another one I’m familiar with called Once Upon A Time in Mexico. Very similar to this one.
Can’t say I agree with Safran’s account on Hollywood. It sounds more like he is having a hard time getting in and has a chip on his shoulder because of it. The Mormon movie would have a certain appeal, but you’d get a lot of people saying it was offensive, etc, insert political correctness bs here. While Americans like to make fun of people different from themselves, there is a double standard of how it is okay. On a small scale within a person’s friends, not many people say or do too much about it. Politically correct people will stand around and say ‘you can’t say that’ or ‘it is wrong to think that’ etc, etc, but nothing else is done. When it goes national or international, as with movies, it is considered bad and wrong, and even those people that enjoy it will usually not say so publicly for fear of how people they are acquainted with will react to them. We’ve hit a point over here where because you have to respect everyone and everything, you can’t make a joke about it, unless you are part of that community, i.e. only black people are allowed to make jokes about black people. If you aren’t black and crack a joke, you’re racist. For several years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, mainstream was saying whatever it felt about the Muslims and other people from that area of the world and it was considered okay, but over the past couple of years the pendulum is swinging back to the middle, with fewer and fewer people saying the slandering is okay. The following is a song that I came across of Facebook originally. Just a few years ago this would have been considered great. Now I guess some radio stations are banning it. Can’t say I fully agree with it, but can’t say I agree with the ban either. If they actually knew their history, they’d know that religion and state were originally suppose to be kept separate – it is not a new thing. If anything, the Christian stuff that has made its way in was mostly during the Cold War when America was trying to distance itself as much as possible from the Soviets atheist stand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WytTnGXvVog
re bug cartoons- think that is some of the most entertaining toons I’ve seen in a long time. Haven’t seen them over here, at all, but not overly surprising. Still in shock can find Shaun the Sheep stuff. Loved the gum one, and can completely sympathize with the spider in the second. We’ve had this one wall clock for years that chimes the hour and at half past. For some reason my parents thought it would be a good idea to get a standing grandfather clock (see spider vid for grandfather clock sound) and place it in the room right next to the wall clock. And of course they aren’t synced so one clock goes and then the other clock goes, plus the grandfather dings at fifteen past and forty-five past the hour. Gets very annoying.
Well, looking at the word count, I guess I was subconsciously trying to make up for the shorter post last time. This may take the title of longest post award.
3450 +edit
Hmm. What did I say about drinking the red cordial? You've gone completely berko with the word length! I'm trying to cut down! Anyway, looks like the Word approach worked for you just fine. I don't use it enough to know if it gets glitchy...I still tend to save in my online email account's Notepad as I go (in fact, your post was so long I've had three cracks at replying to it! Been saving them in Notepad). Another alternative is to copy the text with your mouse...I'm pretty sure that even if your browser crashes, you'll still be able to paste back up what you had previously saved. You find Word glitchy at times? Anyway, I hope that have enough time to write essays in uni...these posts of ours are essay length!
re education - over here, English is mandatory to the end of year 12. Personally I don't find it essential. If you want to learn for comprehension and analysis, I don't see how History or Philosophy can't be better for this. Saw a programme on Philosophy being taught in schools instead of Religious Ed (at church schools). Apparently kids who take philosophy are less likely to use bullying and they talk their way through issues, not using violence. But even before then I'd thought Philosophy was a good subject to take over English. May have posted a link to a story from here re phonetics making a comeback. Probably a good thing for primary school children. Not sure if I find grammar that important, as a discrete area of study. It's the kind of thing I can see be corrected in the context of essays or whatnot.
re LOL...yeah, I thought it meant Lots Of Love too! Found it odd that people I barely knew used that on me! How embarrasment!
re maths...well, there is an expectation that students are literate at the end of high school, and a desire by some (employers?) that their knowledge of this is quite advanced (if you want to go down the grammar as a discrete area of study route). I don't see why you can't have that same expectation for maths. My impression is that maybe the teachers aren't up to it. Scandanavian and Asian nations excel at teaching this area. I wish I had been taught maths properly at primary school. Teachers maybe too generalist for it and not very skilled at having varying methods of getting the message across. For me, maths is where all the interesting intellectual work is happening. Centuries ago, it would have been philosophy. But now science and maths is where its at. Sometimes I get paranoid at shops...do I get wrong change because the staff aren't good at maths, or are they trying it on with me to see if they can get away with short changing me? Never sure!
re sciences as part of education...well, for me philosophy provides analytical tools for dealing with obscure ideas. History can teach understanding narrative. Maths is for language of science, and science is good for teaching a rigorous body of knowledge. Those subjects seem to me to provide a well rounded intellectual framework for any student to tackle whatever it is that they want to do or encounter in life. But maybe I'd be creating overly literal and and constrained people? Technocrats? Hmm. Personally I think Philosophy is pretty useful, even in thinking about the arts...so maybe not.
re special needs kids...my impression is that the pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in medicalising lots of facets of everyday life...your child has tantrums sometimes? Hey, here's some drugs for them! Like I say, I think it's important that your educational model is world's best, and you work hard to get all kids up to speed. Seriously, I'd like to know what Asian and Scandinavian countries are doing which sees them top surveys for having the best science and maths students in the world. Are we doing it differently? Why not copy success stories for this subject? Just heard the other day about how Israel has a top notch reputation for academic achievement/research at universities. It's smaller than Australia...but so are Scandinavian countries too.
re FotC...surprised you forked out for that. I begrudgingly bought dvds of Battlestar Galactica because the network here stuffed it around too much. Buying dvds cold...you do that often? I'm annoyed that SBS TV over here (govt funded one) is so far behind on Mad Men. Maybe they have to be, because of the cable company which screens it first? Series are very short and I have to wait another 8 months for the 3rd series. Annoying. It's the kind of show that may tempt me for a very poor bargain...pay a lot for not much show in order to catch up. Also annoying me of late...I've barely glanced at reviews for Dexter on cable and have unwaveringly landed on a massive spoiler for where I am up to on network tv...not even sure if/when the next series will screen on free to air...last time I checked it was at the end of this year. What made you decide to buy FotC?
re vampire genre...the star of Let Me In is into Vampire Diaries. I'm finding it very soap now, so would not hate to see it axed. You barely see the witch in that, but she's what'sherface's best friend? Okay. I'm not a huge fan of Supernatural, but still annoyed that the network here pulled it off air a few eps into its run. Odd. They don't have a regular alternative digital channel, so not sure when that will resume. Begrudgingly hired Smallville years ago due to the same network stuffing it around. Find that soapy too and a hard slog, so stopped hiring once that season ended. re LMI...it's okay, but I think the original is better, so I'd suggest that be seen first and leave the remake for a while, since it is so close to the original...if it hadn't of had Chloe in it, I wouldn't have watched it all...pointless American remake of a terrific movie. The remake didn't screen very long here either, but the original was art-house only, I think, so maybe they made a similar amount of money.
re Being Human...ABC TV 2nd digital channel screens this. Haven't watched it. ABC is the government funded network. I'm nostalgic for shows like X Files and Buffy...nothing really solid in the supernatural oevre since them. And I had to overcome my perception that these were stupid American shows...took me a while to start watching them! Found them to be classics once I started watching them though.
re government funding of networks...I disagree. The networks are independently run. Our problem is that they are directly funded by government, which can punish the ABC mainly if they don't like their news coverage of them. BBC funded by tv owners or something. Government can't threaten or bully them. Commercial networks over here just show a lot of American rubbish. English programmes making a bit of a comeback on them too. ABC TV and SBS TV here don't really do reality tv programmes and junk like that. We have 3 commercial networks...I'd happily see two of them sink so long as one of them showed my favourite shows. So, basically saying that government does not run the government funded networks here. The last conservative government here also politicised the network...appointing conservative sympathisers to the ABC board...people who hate the ABC and would love to see it go commercial or sink! Basically, I think tv would suck if there was no ABC TV here especially, and SBS TV. The latter screens the UK show "Shameless" and I've recently come to the view that that is the best show on tv for the last decade. If there were no government funded networks you'd just get the Rupert Murdoch view of the world rammed down our throats. There was an excellent docu on such stuff...think it was Outfoxed...a US court case involving Fox News basically ruled that Fox News was not required to report news. From memory, it involved the network pulling a story on health concerns over a milk product...the company must have had an advertising account with them. With no ABC or BBC, you wouldn't get all the news that's fit to print...just the stuff the corporations feel comfortably letting you in on.
re accents...over here, in films especially, we've often hired Americans in the belief that the film will be easier to sell to the US. Even sadder is when Australians pretend to be Americans in these movies! Generally these moves are a signal that the movie is a real stinker. The best Australian movies don't try and pander to an American market...don't think this move has ever really been successful before, either. Got to put in a good word for Aussie movie "Animal kingdom"...may be playing in the US now. Terrific movie. No Americans in it or Australians pretending to be American. Did see a docu "Not quite Hollywood" which was about Australian exploitation movies from the 70s and 80s. Think one with American Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween) sounded interesting..."Road games"? Also had another American in it too! Stacey Keach? Not sure...might have to take a punt on that old movie!
re IT Crowd...unfortunately I didn't label what scenes I was posting first up...maybe the one you didn't see concerned Friendface? If you've seen it, not really sure what else I had in mind.
Friendface
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Lh3O3KeCQ
re Buffy theme...can't remember the context of this discussion, but I know that there is a suggestion that Nerf Herder sampled (or worse) an Austrian pop song:
Deutsch-Österreichisches Feingefühl - Codo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7woSjMPreA
The female vocal melody sounds familiar, yeah? (not the lyrics, the sounds)
re basketball...well, actually I don't really follow sport anymore...used to go to Aussie rules game and whatnot in the past, but my alibi is that me watching my favourite teams brings them bad luck. Just an excuse perhaps? I was a fan of Australian basketballer Andrew Gaze many years ago. He played NBA, but mainly a bench warmer. If he was more than that, I might have gotten into it more. He was a star at Seton Hall beforehand, I believe (college basketball in the US). Andrew Bogut is doing better than Gaze now in the US, but Gaze was the guy I really liked. Bit dorky, but he was exciting...shooting 3 pointers from miles out. One time he tried dunking in our local league and hurt himself! American born player commented on his facial bandage "Why are you wearing a jockstrap on your head?". Apparently Gaze holds or did hold the Olympic record for second most points scored. Brazilian Oscar Schmidt, I think, is the highest scorer in that tourney. Be curious if the US plays netball. If they do, they'd get flogged by our girls...and even the New Zealanders! Also a saw a newish ep of The Simpsons recently, I think. Lisa made a comment to the effect that baseball is the most exciting game in the world...apart from almost every other game...or something like that. Amusing. Just curious...here's some footage of an Australian cricketer's balls (cough, cough)...how would you describe them?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDqn043XhQ8
re Rugby tackles...spear tackles are illegal here but just because something is illegal doesn't mean that idiots don't do it. With Aussie rules king hits, I've often wished that the victims would bring criminal charges against their attacker, but it hasn't happened yet. Spear tackles look potentially devastating/lethal. Sheer idiocy to do that.
Saw that NFL You Tube you posted...some of those would be legal in Aussie rules I think...we can do "hip and shoulder" tackles...bump other players with these, so long as we don't aim for their head. Some of your NFL guys looked like they were using their heads as battering rams on other guy's heads. Helmets must give them that confidence. Doesn't seem bright in any case. One host changed their comment of "Crack heads" to "Crock heads" or something...his correction was wrong! Anyway, there's been times here when Aussie rules teams have had advice on tackling from rugby league teams...that's for safely bringing down a player...safe for the tackler and tackled. Recently there's been stuff of Aussie rules tacklers immobilising the other guy's arms and slinging them to the ground...not exactly rugby league style. I think that that is now illegal here.
re VCR - I only got a pvr because my VCR got stuffed...video inside. Bought a pretty good dual tuner PVR for around a couple of hundred bucks. Forced to upgrade again because it was getting glitchy and the new digital stations were being played on HD channels, which my old PVR couldn't pick up because it was SD. You can buy STB here for around $50 now and if you attach a USB memory stick to it, you've got yourself a PVR. Tried that briefly, but it doesn't suit my viewing patterns. I like to be able to rewind stuff as I watch it live, and you couldn't on that. Some tvs now have USB recording. With the amount of digital channels now, it seems that 2 tuners is not enough. My PVR has a virtual 4 channel tuner. It's actually two tuners, but you can get record channels...so long as they are from the same network...or two channels from two networks. Years before I got my PVR I heard that Japan had PVRs with a ridiculous amount of tuners...8? 16? It's getting that I think maybe 4 tuners is the minimum requirement now...with maybe virtual tuners coming into play too, like mine. With new tvs with their own tuners and USB recording, you can have more tuners and recording options. It's pretty cheap too, I think, though I felt rushed into buying a more expensive PVR, it's pretty good. Can't imagine finding VCRs tolerable now! PVRs are just so much more convenient.
re Machete...it's how here now, so I understand the context better now. A fake trailer in "Grindhouse" by Tarantino turned into a real movie. Seems it does have some pointed comments about racism in the US but otherwise a straight up exploitation movie.
re John Safran...maybe with a bit of poking around you can find that Machete segment, from his radio show on ABC's Triple J (yep, the government funded network):
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/safran/
Not sure, but MAYBE he was talking with Robert Rodriguez. The views I mentioned belonged to Safran's guest, not Safran. I have no reason to believe that Safran is a frustrated Hollywood wannabe! That trailer for a Mormon movie wasn't in earnest, I don't think, but it would be fun it was for real!
re In God We Still Trust...not sure if I would have called that unPC. It seems pretty vague, lyrically, but I suppose that the phrases it uses are 'code' for those who know how to read that text. The visuals are pretty unsubtle, but it's a fan based one, I take it...just hearing the song on the radio, it might not come across as so 'loaded'. Not my cup of tea!
re Miniscule shorts...noticed that that has Disney involvement...so...is Disney material only on cable or on its own network? As for the spider and the clock...yeah, I feel its pain! Me old man had a bedside clock with glow in the dark hands. I REALLY hope that by the time he had bought his they had stopped using radium or whatever it is called to make those hands glow! Have heard that workers who made them got cancer or something...not exactly noise related, but slightly more important! But yeah, that kind of noise bugs me. Even my new PVR bugs me a bit...really bright lcd display...have to cover it up when I go to bed. As for noise, this seems odd...personally things like crickets chirping really bug me and a certain bird's call in the morning which penetrates my ear plugs and a pillow over my head! The odd thing is this...recently I've been buying cds for relaxation...and it occurred to me that a cd with noises like rain on it (and even crickets!) may be relaxing...even though they would bug me in reality! So, to distract me from rain and cricket noises I could conceivably play a cd with...the sounds of rain and cricket noises! Have found You Tubes with this kind of material on it...am willing to share if this stuff interests you.
edit in: re spider in that Miniscule short...I like the psychology of it...presumably it had gotten used to the ticking clock then become distracted by the dripping tap...only for the clock to worm its way back into the spider's consciousness once it had stopped the tap dripping! I can be like that sometimes...sort of related...sometimes I wake up to the sound of my own breathing! Being annoyed at the sound of your own breathing...can't be right, can it?
Hey, some more time wasters for you...many years ago I stumbled across a great series...Father Ted. Looks like I missed the start of it repeated on digital...might have to get the dvds "one of these days!". Anyway, here are some amusing clips:
You don't have much of an imagination, do you Dougal? (three wishes for Dougal)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58-lc-xXuDg
Depends on your perspective ("explaining evolution to a creationist"!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSKNuDnh8Kw
Did want to find clips for one where Dougal is acquainted with the core beliefs of Catholocism by Father Ted and one I heard about on radio...the guy who played Dougal mentioned it...to do with a parody of the move called "Speed"...called "Slow", from memory. His description of it sounded really runny, though I don't think that I've seen that ep. Oh,it does look like the entire ep is on You Tube, in bits and pieces...just use the show title and 'speed' for links. This looks like the main bit though:
Milkfloat speed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MUz0rhBews
I couldn't find that other scene I remember, but the following one makes it seems like it wasn't a one off!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujiJ298oeNM
Word count: 3010
I’ve had word glitch a couple times on me. Usually it backs itself up, so I don’t worry too much about it, but there has been an occasional paper that I’ve had mostly typed out and it will do something weird. Luckily they were short papers, and I write papers out by hand before typing them up. Works well for an extra editing step. Something may sound good when originally written, but then go back and the wording needs real work, and for papers I have a hard time getting ideas to flow when I’m sitting at the computer. Sort of annoying, but always been that way. Don’t know what it says about the American uni system, but most of these posts are longer than most papers/essays I had to write! Most of my papers, the professors didn’t want much over 2100 words. Guess they didn’t want to be bothered grading it, (or the uni may have been cutting back on the number of grunts the profs could hire to do the grading for them.) Use to sit writing papers and get irritated because I could get the word length on these way up there, and then be struggling to get the word length minimum on the uni paper. Think I ramble too much on these posts.
Re English- pretty sure it is required over here through the end of 12th, as well. While it did do a couple things, I don’t think it is necessary. As you say, history can easily teach the argument side of things. Philosophy, I don’t really know where to stick it. Never had a philosophy class, just had some teachers try to throw bits of some at us from time to time. Was a class for IB had to take called Theory of Knowledge. To this day I’m unaware of anyone coming up with a good explanation of what it is it is suppose to teach. Only official description about it I’ve heard is ‘how do you know what you know.’ One of those classes that you wish you could get the time spent in it back. Few times in there the teacher would give us a sentence or two from a random philosopher and then in groups we had to come up with what we thought it meant. Not the way to do philosophy.
For grammar, I just mean people need to know enough to put together documents that have correct capitalization, structure, etc. Don’t need to know every rule in the book, but it would be nice to read something that I don’t want to take a red pen to the whole thing because there is something wrong every few words. They could even write the way they speak and it would be a step up. The most irritating is they don’t even bother to fix what spell check is telling them is wrong. At least they could have the computer fix that for them! At that point it is just plain lazy.
Re maths- I completely agree that science and math are where the intellectual advances are being made, but not everyone is cut out for the higher level stuff, and sometime it can be obvious from a young age. Saw some of my old report cards recently from primary school, and they’re proof that I’ve never been good at math. In my early 20s and I still feel shaky with the most basic math. Multiplication is okay, division isn’t bad, addition usually isn’t terrible, but still like having a piece of paper if dealing with anything over 2 digits, and subtraction is the same way, maybe worse. If someone goes over it very slowly, I can grasp the concept of what is supposed to happen when numbers are plugged at some of the moderate math levels (ie geometry, early calculus, etc) but when I sit down to plug numbers myself, there is some kind of disconnect and it rarely comes out right. While I find certain aspects of math interesting (mainly those that play into science equations) I’ve known for a long time it is an area that I don’t belong unless a computer is doing all the hard work and I’m just inserting the raw data.
Re other edu- something I forgot to mention last time was foreign langs. In today’s world, it pays to know another lang, especially if you’re into something like physics or math, because of where and how most of the research is being done. They need to start early, as it is much easier to pick up at a younger age that older. Saw a news segment where the reporter was looking at Chinese edu, she was in a third grade classroom, and the kids could speak English like a native speaker. Could hardly even hear an accent. Ten, twenty years ago language might not have been that important, but in today’s world, I think it would be wise to start pushing it.
As for other areas (some sciences, the arts, etc) there needs to be some kind of exposure in the schools. There are a lot of kids that may not get the exposure outside of school, and a lot of times it is the exposure to that one obscure thing that triggers the ‘aha! That’s what I want to do moment.’
Re other countries’ schools- highly competitive. If a kid can’t cut it, they go to cram schools or don’t get through. It is not about getting everyone at the same level. The kid has to want it, or someone like a parent has to push the kids to do well.
Don’t know much about the Scandinavian or Israeli schools. A lot of the areas where you see good numbers coming out of is because education is more valued in society, and that society has agreed to find ways to get those high success numbers. There are a lot of kids over here at least that don’t care about school at all, and their parents aren’t willing to help push them because the parents don’t think it is important. Shaming, guilt trips, and humiliation are big factors in Asian societies in getting kids to do well. And in all cases, a smaller number of students to teacher ratio helps big time. What works small scale might now work or be feasible on a large scale.
Think part of the problem in deciding how and what to teach right now is the world is at another changing point. Technology is consuming more and more of people’s lives and changing the way we interact. The world is more connected now than ever, and it keeps getting more linked. In the end, though, it all comes down to a kid wanting to do well.
Re dvd buying- I’ve started buying more without necessarily seeing them first since I’m back at my parents. What’s on tv isn’t the best, our internet connection makes it more difficult to find stuff online, and since the connection is in my parents bedroom, there is a limited time window for use. More likely to buy shows I’ve heard about cold. With Brit stuff I’ve found if I like the synopsis, and the trailers aren’t bad, I end up liking it, so much more likely to fork out cold for Brit stuff than American. Course buy it from Britain as it is cheaper.
Re FotC- liked the clips that I saw, and it was a decent deal at the store. Sort of an impulse buy of ‘liked what I’ve seen, it’s a decent deal, might as well give it a shot.’
Re vamp/supernatural genre- when it goes mainstream, it tends to have the two extremes: gore and soap. The stuff in between never really seems to take off and only the real fans of the genre get into it. Adaptations are also questionable, and usually just the very basics come from the source material, alienating the original fans most of the time (Vampire Diaries, True Blood/Sookie novels, Blood and Chocolate off the top of my head). The only one I can think of that was a good adaptation was a series called Blood Ties, adapted from the Vickie Nelson books by Tanya Huff. Unfortunately it got bad treatment from the US network it was on, which I guess was the main backer, and it only had one season. (Why they agreed to go with that network is beyond me as it was completely out of place on the channel. Sort of set up to fail.).
Re Buffy- have you heard, think it’s Warner Bros., is planning on doing another Buffy movie? Don’t know how good it will be, and from what I’ve read online no fans of the show are happy that it is in the works. Supposedly Joss Whedon and Sarah Michelle Gellar aren’t going to be a part of it, and they claim they aren’t going to re-visit the high school years. Not overly optimistic myself. For fans of the show, Gellar is Buffy, and it was with Whedon that it was successful. Seems like WB is trying to jump on the supernatural band wagon as it is cooling off a bit.
Re networks- network owners over here are already tied into politics enough that I don’t think adding a gov funded network wouldn’t have any effect on what is broadcast. ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN tend to air the more liberal agendas, and FOX tends to be crazy conservative. We could really stand for a network in between, but I don’t think it is going to happen. Get too many people sucked in on sensationalism. Nor do they usually wait for all the facts. The other day news was on as my parents were getting ready for work, and the reporter came on with ‘breaking news.’ Someone may have been shot in this general area. We don’t have any more details than that, but we think it may have to do with a carjacking. Well the area they were talking about is a high crime rate anyway. They really couldn’t have waited until the facts were in before reporting? Like, I don’t know, confirming there was any sort of shooting or crime to begin with?
Re IT crowd- no couldn’t see that one before, but could it be any more true?
Re Buffy theme- Yeah, can hear when the girl is singing the oooo part, it’s the same as the guitar in the theme song. Personally I like the guitar better. Drum parts are different, though, I think. Couldn’t watch all of the music vid – the main singer’s teeth really creep me out.
Re balls- amazing placement. Off topic- why do they always move cameras around like that in sport interview clips like that? If the people watching aren’t interested enough in what the person is saying with a still camera, what good is the movement other than making people motion sick?
Re VCR/PVR- Multiple tuners not really an issue, at least haven’t been yet. Never had anything on two different channels that I’ve needed/wanted recorded at the same time. Everything I really watch seems to be going into hiatus right now. In January a couple things are coming on, but seems like there won’t be any overlap.
Re Safran- took a look at the site, and the closest thing to an archive I found was the podcast list on the right. Might look to see when Machete came out, and then try to find the date from there, at least assuming it was on close to when it came out as a promo for it, maybe.
Re Disney- technically Disney owns a network, which in turn owns several channels. Over here, ABC is owned by the Disney corporation. For their weekend kiddie time, the shows they play are old seasons of Disney shows, with the original air date being several years ago on one of their cable channels.
They have another channel on cheap cable called ABC Family, where it airs a bunch of cheesy, bad acting movies and tv shows. Have a few original series on it. ‘The Secret Life of the American Teenager’ is one, ‘Pretty Little Liars’ another. Lot of shows that show teens doing bad stuff, but in a kind of clean way, and then having consequences. Sort of teen/pre-teen (I refuse to use the word tween!) soapy things. Guess they have reruns of Gilmore Girls, Friday Night Lights, other similar shows. They have been doing a lot of marathons lately where they are showing Disney movies, especially ones from the early 90s and some of the other classics. Think 7th Heaven reruns use to have a large time slot on the channel at one point. Like most channels, it use to have some decent things, but not so much anymore. Don’t know how much of the shows played on here are owned by Disney or its affiliates, or if they just play them.
Then there are some channels that are channels that are on more higher cable packages where everything done is blatantly Disney. Where the pre-teen shows they are well known for originally air, like Hannah Montana. Most of it live action stuff anymore. Couple toons coming back. Phineas and Ferb is probably one of the best Disney toons done in a long time with old fashion hand drawn animation. Think they have a couple more channels related to showing their original shows. Know that there was a Toon Disney around for a long time, that showed just Disney toons past and present, but don’t know if it still around.
Along with those, there are other channels owned by Disney. Think Food Network was one. You can trace who owns what over here because of how cross promotion is done, ie they type of commercials played for certain shows not on that channel, or people from shows on other channels will pop up on it for promoting some other show. Usually better at remembering who owns what, but Disney’s holdings aren’t channels I usually watch. Could name a bunch on NBC’s right now!
Re annoying sounds/lights- show over here called ‘1000 Ways to Die,’ posted a vid of part of an ep awhile back, where people who use to paint the radium paint onto the merchandise died from cancer caused by the radium. Said that the bosses use to encourage keeping the brush tips sharp by using their mouths and tongues to dampen it, despite knowing the health risks of ingesting radium (and that sounds so dirtier summarized here than it did in the show’s narration).
Bought a coffee pot in college for tea that had an LCD clock on it what was so bright I had to cover it up at night to be able to sleep. Then, I was right across the street from our football stadium, and sometime at night when they’d be working on some system or think they ran some late practices in the stadium, the stadium lights would be on most of the night. And my bed was right in front of the window. Luckily was able to get curtains that were able to block it from falling on the bed.
As for sounds, in the summer the cicadas are what really annoy me with how loud they get. It’s always eerie when you go outside the first time after they go dormant because of how quiet it is. Anyhoo, my dad has sleep apnea, where a person stops breathing in their sleep, and has a machine to force air through so he doesn’t stop breathing at night, which is a very loud machine. And for whatever reason, my parents keep the tv on when they are going to sleep and let the timer turn it off. Problem is that dad is hard of hearing to begin with (which he refuses to admit) plus the noise of the machine, and he turns the tv up so loud so he can hear it, that I can have my door closed, have music on and still hear it in my room. And several years ago picked up the habit where I like quiet to get to sleep, and almost nightly find myself going in to turn the damn TV off or down. To add to the problem, he still wakes up in the middle of the night, about the time I’m usually going to bed, and glares at me when I turn it down, or turns it right back up when my door is closed. Told him number of times it’s too loud if I can hear it clearly through my door, and he claims that I’m making it up. One of these days I’m going to drug him and take him in to get his hearing examined. Maybe that would solve the problem.
I’ve got a couple of the discs you mentioned with random nature sounds on them. One is a thunderstorm disc, have another that is just soothing music. Picked them up at uni to act as static to help override dorm noises when trying to get some stuff done or listen to when I had a headache but still wanted to hear something other than dorm noise, which is definitely the wrong thing for a headache. As for breathing, are you sure you aren’t snoring? Lol. Think I’ve heard a couple times of people’s breathing waking them, though. Don’t know what they did about it. I tend to be a pretty heavy sleeper once I’m actually asleep, though it has gotten lighter as I’m getting older.
Re Father Ted- you’ve mentioned once or twice. On of those series keeping an eye out for in the States, and then keeping an eye on the exchange rate. Dougal in the first clip reminds me of some people I’ve met. The second clip by itself, ehh. Clicking on another clip, liked this one.
Dougal’s Bright Idea
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787490/board/thread/128493812?d=174442870 &p=6#174442870
Loved the other two clips. Especially with the speed one where he remade the box pyramid and then rammed through it. Wonder if it was one of those things he always wanted to do? Looks like he would have had to back up to get some speed to hit it like that. Second one with the bishop, Dougal has his wise moments.
Word count: 3059
Happy Holidays
Well, I'm writing this in my online email account's "Notepad" feature and saving occasionally. Depending on what computer I use, I sometimes find that sometimes I can recover info by pressing "Back". Bit ordinary to hear that sometimes even Word fails you! re flow of writing...a good touch typist can write multiple times faster than by hand...have heard on a radio interview programme (Late Night Live on ABC's Radio National) that it's a different process writing by touch type...more free flowing, perhaps? Interesting in any case. Not fast enough myself to know about that in any case! I do touch type though.
re grammar...personally I think that a teacher's red ink may be sufficient to fix up these problems...as opposed to formal classes. But what would I know? As for spell checks...well, a bugbear of mine is computers set to "US English"! Have to fight them! And sometimes I'm told something is wrong but when I check the spelling it seems that I am right. Stupid Bill Gates! Or whoever.
re maths...I'm an underachiever in that. When I was in primary school there was one kid who I thought was a maths wiz. His father was a maths teacher. That would help, ay? Occasionally I'd get sent to the "slow" class for maths. Gee, that makes sense...get even FURTHER behind the main group! Actually, I first learned long division with bloody algebraic symbols! Lost that skill now, though. But reading a science mag not that long ago it turns out that long division isn't really a logical process like other maths processes are. Maybe that's why I never really "got it"? Nowadays, maybe I'm a bit paranoid too? E.g. when dealing with sales people I wonder if the staff aren't very proficient at maths or whether they are trying me on...wonder if I look stupid or something! I.e. getting wrong change, so I have to point it out to them. Good think we have computers for that grunt work now in any case...not always pervasive enough though.
re learning languages...yeah, that's been a theme here in Australia since many a year ago...we have to learn an Asian language because that's where our economic future lies, the argument goes. Hmm...maybe over a decade ago speaking Japanese would have been a priority...but now Japan is a laggard economy and China is taking off. Problem with picking winners with this policy?
re cramming in other countries. Works, ay? Well, we obviously don't want to implement anything that may actually work! You've reminded me about this aspect...think I've heard it in relation to Asian countries. If you call that "immersion" education, I think we SHOULD try it. Apparently it is the best way to learn a foreign language too.
re Israel etc...well, that was in regard to Israel being a powerhouse country as far as university research goes. Really, I think that Australia has been ill served by our politicians. They tend to do what is easy, not what is hard or sound. One former conservative Prime Minister bugs me...he'd like Australia to have a population over X10 what it is now. I'd rather Australia modelled itself on Scandanavian countries...smarter country...not a bigger country, like the US.
re buying from Britain cheaper...really? I tend to find that the US' region coding of DVD is a rort, designed to gouge people here in Australia. One calibration DVD sells for US$17 but some 25 pounds...the Aussie dollar is worth just more than the US dollar now, but the UK pound buys one Australian dollar for some 65 pence...sorry about the phrasing...you know what I mean, yeah? I.e. UK version of the DVD much more expensive than the US version...which won't play here!
re supernatural stuff...have heard the next big thing is some sort of US zombie drama! I like that our free to air digital stations has really excellent US shows...waiting for Dexter to come back (hopefully it will), Weeds is great. All the good US stuff is on the digital channels...as opposed to the main channels, which I think has American rubbish on it...that rates well. Maybe check out the Aussie movie "Thirst". Saw it as a teen on VHS...some of the imagery was striking. Will check that out sometime again...one of these days.
re Buffy...have heard about that. The movie actress was more of a spunk than Sodium Mono Glutamate...I mean Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, the tv series was great. It sounded a stupid American show to me (like X Files), but a promo sounded interesting, because it reminded me of a fave movie "Dark City". That ep was "Hush". A great ep, and I caught up with all the show after that, during the breaks...starting with the movie. Joss never really hit those heights again, though that girl in Serenity was becoming really interesting, including in the movie...so I'm disappointed that there's no more as far as she goes. Not sure if a movie sans Joss will appeal to me...but even with Joss it would be touch and go as to whether I saw it.
re network bias...well, I just can't stomach the tv programme promotions which pass for news on the commercials here. Just awful. Did see a US docu...maybe Michael Moore...or a Noam Chomsky docu...where the idea was put forward that in the US you get fake 'debate'. E.g. you get someone on the 'left', say, advocating American bombs Iraq into the stone age. And someone from the right advocates nuking Iraq out of existence. What could be more fair than that? Or more balanced? Um...how about NOT doing EITHER of those things? It's the media as being right wing and ideologically driven with no real presence by the left...or you get straw men from the left...ones easy to mock or tear down.
re IT Crowd clip being true...the Friendface bit? That Aussie satirist Shaun Micallef had some good site names too...MyFace and SpaceBook. The start of that IT ep had the following promo for the site:
Friendface promo (at start of ep):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rNgCnY1lPg
Noticed the following promo in a link too...I wonder if there are stupid Australian who dial the US number! But I think Australians should be careful of advising that our emergency number is "Triple O"...as it's actually triple zero...but we know what we mean...who cares if immigrants get confused?
Emergency services...new number:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ
re German guy's teeth creeping you out in music vid...really? One of my favourite Australian bands is Divinyls...saw a live vid of them in the US on You Tube...someone left a reply mentioning that female singer's teeth. Hmm. Here's one of my fave Divinyls songs...sort of relevant to our taste in tv:
Divinyls - Science fiction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfrKejzTdLU
Not looking closely at vid...if her teeth interest you, you may want to find that vid I saw!
re cricket ball placement...well, I'd say that if most spin bowlers who had ever lived had placed their balls in those spots, they wouldn't have got those bastmen out. The amount of spin he generated was crucial...he had good placement for how much he spun the ball. Have heard of the phrase "nude balls" re spinners...what they bowl has nothing on it. Which is to say, bowlers like that placing the ball where Warne placed them would be accused of having extremely bad placement. It's because Warne spins the ball so much that his placement is great...a good batsmen seeing the ball "pitch" where it does would not be in fear of 'losing their wicket' (getting out). There's an interesting bowler from Sri Lanka...what do you make of his bowling? The shot at around 50 seconds in looks pretty indicative of his style:
Muttiah Muralitharan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f1gEcZkdAY
Back to Warne (the spin bowler from last post...I was just curious whether you found the sports footage interesting or not. Warne did something you'd think was impossible...make spin bowling glamorous! Previously it tended to be aggressive fast bowlers which made watching bowling exciting...but with Warne you always felt that a wicket was just around the corner...i.e. getting the batter out. And if he didn't, just watching him turn the ball that much was exciting. By comparison, watching two NBA teams jogging up and down the court and scoring every few seconds looks boring!
Found an interesting clip on fast bowling here...Lillee and Thomson were Australia's most fearsome fast bowling partnership...they whipped the soon to be super power West Indies (!) in Australia...5-1. It's because of Lillian Thomson that the Windies went down the fast pace battery route. Not sure how the measuring accuracy back then stacks up against today, but some of the speeds quoted are scary...speeds nowadays are sub Thomson speed, but it seems they lack the intimididation factor of Thomson. A fast bowling comp is mentioned...stinking hot day maybe explains the slow times...and Thommo says he was out of practice that day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjkBNxKZOE8
On the topic of cricket, I heard that an American with a Twitter account by the ID "TheAshes" has been inundated with cricket related tweets. That's because "The Ashes" is the informal name of the trophy Australia and England play in. England are playing Australia now, as I type this, and they have retained the ashes. Did hear how the American woman was offered a trip to Australia to watch this series, as her Twitter followers campaigned to get her out here to Australia for the series. There was no freebie offered for her boyfriend when companies did step onboard...she's actually out here now, but I don't know if she managed to snag her boyfriend along for free too. Here's the story:
The Ashes
http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/the-ashes-are-headed-australias -way-x2026-still-20101229-19a84.html
re camera angles in sports stories...I'm guessing that that is an American 'innovation'. When Channel 9 here had "Wide world of sport" running, you'd get US stories...literally stories about the athletes...it was like watching a soapie! One early morning, after watching some sport, an advertorial came along...I got sucked in...same sort of US story telling thingo...e.g. will the guy working out on the fab exerciser get the girl? I hope so! One movie reviewer here says he literally gets sick with that steady cam method of film making. It doesn't bother me that way...apart from not being able to 'read' the images...it's too confusing for mind. "Quantum of solace" is like that...the cinematography and editing is just a mess...MTV 'style'. Hmm.
re multiple tuners...not really a problem for me as well, EXCEPT on Monday nights of ratings period. At the moment I'm watching Desperate Housewives...which creates conflicts with other shows. Odd, because there are nights when there is literally nothing I want to watch...why not spread out the good shows? Next Thursday A2A returns...final series?
re Safran and Machete...the show was probably around a week or two prior to me mentioning it in this thread. At a guess.
You mention Pretty Little Liars. That's replacing Vampire Diaries now. I'm assuming that VD is off air now in the US? I'm guessing Australia is up to date with it. Before digital, Australia was usually months behind US shows...but since we became big Torrenters, the networks started 'fast tracking' US shows. We got another new digital channel coming online next week...get to see Californication now, and maybe give Nurse Jackie a chance still. Hopefully Supernatural picks off from where it was ditched on the main channel last year. It's not great, but I watch it.
re Disney cross promotion...do you get news broadcasts running stories on their networks drama series? It happens here on the commercials. Hmm.
re licking radium brushes...that rings a bell...was that in this thread? Man this thread is huge...be a nightmare to search it for titbits!
re bright LED lights and stadium lights...reminds me of that Seinfeld ep where Jerry sleeps in Kramer's room, which has a restaurant neon light outside...and pretty much turns into Kramer the next day! You don't see too many red light LEDs nowadays...I think they aren't as bothersome...but maybe not so 'cool' now.
re your dad...maybe buy him a cordless headphone? The noise cancelling ones can be expensive though, perhaps. Or for yourself! Have heard of systems which neutralise noise by 'reflecting' the sound back at itself or whatever. Not sure what the go is with that or the price. edit in: Heard this last night on Australian news...here's a link, re dentist drill noise:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/new-device-silences-shriek-o f-dental-drill-20110110-19l53.html
re snoring not breathing...maybe...but snoring is when one is asleep...I'm sort of in a twilight zone, perhaps, so maybe you are right. Hate it when my nose whistles...get a frickin' flute then, why don't you? Maybe when one is bothered by the sounds of other people's breathing, one should...chill?
re soothing noises...I've made some playlists on You Tube...currently listening to a nature noise clip...stream, crickets. Recently discovered a Sia cover of "Paranoid android". That is addictive, as is Bad Plus cover of "Comfortably numb". Jazzy, relaxing music.
Agreed re cicadas. Deafening. I drown in hot water crickets near my window...if you can't handle the heat get out of my freakin' earshot! Do you get stories about Australia's plagues in the US? Occasionally you have stories here about mice plagues...farms where the floor is just covered with them...you lift up a tin roof and there's a brazilian of them under it. Recently had a locust plague around here, I think...maybe grasshopper, dunno...didn't really see much of them where I am.
re Father Ted..actually I really liked that cow clip...Dougal must think that there are cows the size of toys in the real world! You didn't actually link to that Dougal's bright idea You Tube...you linked to a post in this thread. I had a look at that myself earlier, if I saw the one you meant...sound quality not that good and not the kind of thing that grabs me. Might have to check out a clip where Dougal says something profound re Jesus dying for us...had a quick look at that topic, but no clip so far...just clips with texts by atheists or something...I just want the clip from Father Ted man!
Mappy new year!
P.S. story the other night here re IB on ABC TV News...can't find a link to it, but it was saying that Australian students had performed the best in the world re this...some students got perfect scores or something.
P.S. hopefully I haven't posted this vid up before...Roy & H.G. on the gymnastics...they give their expert commentary a run...would have liked to find one on the women's gymnatics...the "I'm a princess" move always made me laugh!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKFWE1xt_x0
edit in: re buying dvds...I've been thinking about buying a remote for my new PS3, and I noticed that for about $20 extra you get the first season box set of True Blue...sort of tempting, but if the free to air channels don't show the series, I suppose I could be opening myself up to greater expense to keep up with the series, assuming I was to like the first series.
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Re writing computer v hand- Generally I can type faster than I can write, both too slow for thought processes unfortunately, but it just flows easier by hand. Also, with by hand, I can scratch out something, but still see it if I decide to re-include later, can make side notes, arrows, etc. Editing suggestions for later. Guess I’m too chaotic in my writing process for typing to really work.
Re grammar- Do they still use red ink over there? About 2002 or so, a movement started over here to stop using red ink to mark papers because of some psychological something or the other about red ink and making students feel bad about themselves when a paper came back covered in red. Personally, don’t see what the difference is. A lot of grading ink is a lot of grading ink, no matter what the colour. Though I have to wonder if there is really much grading going on beyond if the assignment was done or not, or standards have slacked that much. Probably a combination of both. Also goes back to the teachers have to know what they are doing before being able to correct the students.
Thought of something else while writing a different part of the response: when learning a foreign lang at a later age, it always helps to know the parts of speech, since that is how it is mostly taught, at least over here. By not teaching grammar parts when learning English, you just have to try to pick it up later, and typically hampers learning the other lang. Don’t know how many times a lang teacher has thrown some basic grammar word out expecting the class to know what she is talking about, and have the whole class go ‘huh?’
Re spell checks- Remember in computer labs when we had time to kill, we’d sometimes try to change what the dictionaries were set to, and in language classes we’d always try to set the dictionary to whatever language we we’re learning (i.e. Spanish, German, French). They NEVER worked. There have been times I’ve deliberately gone in and set the dictionary to British English, spelled words correctly the Brit way, and it would tell me I’m wrong. Don’t know why they bother to waste all the memory and program space if they aren’t going to have them work.
Re maths- first school I was at taught it pretty much by straight memorization. Timed tests were either a weekly or monthly thing. By second grade I was able to manage multiple digit addition and subtraction, and was working on memorizing multiplication tables. We moved with a couple months left in the school year, and my new school had kids working on two digit addition and just starting two digit subtraction. That is where I lost a lot of my basic math skills, and never gained them back. Too different of an environment and too different a way of being taught. Hated it, and still resent it to a degree. As for getting correct change, I pretty much have to rely on the machines, when I use cash. Brain just doesn’t work fast enough at the counter to be able to second-guess it. There was one time I was at a place that sells bread, soup, sandwiches, etc, and was just getting a couple rolls to snack on. Total was like 50 odd cents, use 57 for story sake, and for whatever reason that day my brain refused to cooperate and tried to give the girl a 25 cent piece plus like 13 cents. She just kept repeating no, 57 cents. Luckily I was with my mom and someone else, and mom came over and had it straightened out. Irritating, but my brain just wasn’t adding it up right that day.
Re languages- heard story the other day that for business purposes, Americans need to start learning Chinese. Think it may take some people awhile to swallow that English isn’t likely to hold out on top. Right now I think the big push is Spanish, so that when the people from Mexico come up and don’t bother learning English, we can still communicate.
As for picking winners, there is no good way. For the longest time, French, German, and Spanish have been the main ones being taught over here. I think some Catholic schools had Latin. Don’t know anyone that went to Catholic school so not sure, but at university think I heard some people mention it. I don’t think the Asian model is the immersion model. Think immersion is when you visit where the language is mainly spoken and you’re pretty much forced to have to speak some in order to get by day to day. But they do start them early enough that their brains pick up on it much easier than even starting in say 6th grade.
Re cramming- have always been a firm believer in cramming. Is how kept my grades high throughout school, especially in university. In order for cramming to fully work, however, the information has to be at least partially learned; can build on some of it last minute, just usually not whole concepts. It does work, though, no matter what some people say.
Re population size- large populations work well in pre-industrialized nations and industrialized nations. When the transition into post-industrialized nation starts, the population usually begins to decline some and moves toward replacement numbers. At that point there really should be a focus on smarter instead of growing, mainly because there is no real reason not to.
Re DVDs/regions prices- Even though the US dollar is down to the pound, it is usually still cheaper. Think yesterday the markets closed with 1 pound equal to 1.65 US dollars, but the pound is usually up on the US dollar. But, dvds of imported shows are expensive. Example, when I bought the UK LOM series, think the rate was 1 pound to about 1.30 US. For both series it was about £25, so 32.50 US, including shipping. At the time the UK version was not available on region 1 (US code). Now that it is available, they want 80 US retail for both series sold as a pack, or 60 US for each separately. And who knows if that has been subjected to any sort of edits. Same thing with anything else I’ve looked into getting. There was about a 10 US$ discrepancy for State of Play, think about 15-20 for the Blackadder collection. Anything I’ve looked at, getting it from Britain was cheaper. So bought a dvd player that could be hacked, and have already paid for it. Also allows to actually buy some stuff that has never been released in region 1 format, and most likely never will be. Other thing, the imported shows usually don’t go on sale, so you’re always stuck paying retail if you buy it over here, plus sales tax. Buy it at the source, haven’t had to pay their tax, and especially with amazon.uk, can typically find it a few quid off, so even more savings.
Example off of amazon and amazon.uk: Currently State of Play on amazon.com is 29.99, though it says retail is 34.99. That is for the region 1 of the BBC series. At amazon.uk, the same thing, just region 2 is retail £19.99, but selling £3.99. So $6.40 US. Unfortunately didn’t get quite that good of a deal, but that’s how it goes.
Have heard that blue-ray is supposedly regionless, but I can’t bring myself to pay what they want for the blue-ray discs. Think the average about $45. Not going to happen until it is the only option left. Very irksome that things on discs keep getting more expensive; like video games. Would love to get a PS3 (thought saw recent rumour that PS4 is going to be out soon so maybe not) but can’t see myself paying full price for games, or even the little they knock off when the games are on sale. Would also like to get a Wii, but having no space to use the motion features pretty much defeats the purpose.
Re supernatural- It’s called The Walking Dead. On a cable station over here. Have heard very good reviews for it, but have zombies are a part of the supernatural genre that I’ve never been interested in.
Re Buffy- don’t think I’ve ever seen the whole series. Didn’t see any of it until it was already in syndication, and when things go into syndication they never show all of the eps, and it wasn’t on at a time that made it easy to see. Do tend to like the later eps more than the earlier ones though. Have never seen the movie, and was only able to find a trailer on youtube. Probably something only able to find on something like Netflix or similar site anymore. Do know the original movie didn’t really include Joss. One of those things that spirals out of the creators control, and that is why the tv series came about. Just don’t see another movie doing to well, unless they get actors that teens go nut over and will go see it just because the flavour of the month is in it.
Re network bias- don’t remember ever seeing any documentaries done by Chomsky, but it does sound like something Moore may do. He has fallen out of favour with main stream over here, so don’t hear too much about him any more. It is slightly more fair than that, mostly. Crazy conservative FOX is very easy to make fun of because of the people they put on there. People that are known for being far right people, and the stories always slant that way. Think my main problem with any of the news networks is I just want the facts of what happened. This happened at such and such a time; this is how it was dealt with. Don’t want to listen to 10 different supposed experts who don’t really matter give their opinions on it. Don’t want all the adjectives and adverbs in the story putting emphasis on different aspects. Just give me the facts d*mn it!
Re Friendface- that showed up in a sidebar from the other IT clip and was able to see it. Love the germ analogy Became addicted to one game on facebook, but haven’t really used it for anything other than that one game.
Re emergency number- that’s one way to cut down on the number of emergency calls to deal with! Well, suppose that’s one good thing about the US not showing anything but US shows: nobody will get confused, call the wrong, and make a fuss or sue when they don’t get help.
Re Divinyls- don’t recognize ‘Science Fiction,’ but clicking on some of the other vids, ‘I Touch Myself’ has at least been released over here. Probably made the charts since some radio stations still play it.
Re Muttiah Muralitharan- think his goal is try to hit the batter in the balls, at least most of the shots shown looked like that was where he was trying to get the ball to bounce to. Amazing speed, at least to my eyes. On the slow-mo side shots, can’t even track the ball. Finally find it when the guy catches it, or at least tries to stop it.
Best comparison I can think of, is watching the cricket clips is kind of like watching baseball. It isn’t bad, but not overly exciting, either. Definitely better than NBA, but not much of a comparison since basketball is easily one of the most boring sports around to watch.
Heat always affects play, and in temps like that there is no way it will be an accurate measurement. Wonder how fast they could have gotten if it had been a decent day? Took a minute for it to sink in that 40 was in Celsius. First thought was ‘what are they talking about? 40 is cold! (though right now it would be welcome over here, F not C). So are bowlers in general getting slower? Or is it just focus on other aspects more? Little that I know of baseball, focus still seems to be on getting it as fast as can go.
Re The Ashes- lol! Just goes to show you gotta be careful choosing usernames. Kind of dumb that she started using it because it was a nickname from a boyfriend, though. What happens if she breaks up with the guy? Don’t think you can change it once it has been set. Think she’d have to open a whole new account. “I AM NOT A FREAKING CRICKET MATCH” has got to be one of the best tweets ever, though.
Re tv schedules- finally have stuff back on that I want to watch, and still no problems so far. Thursday might get an issue in March, because one show I started watching is coming back on, and TVD is on at 7 the same night, but have only been watching TVD off and on, when I remember it’s on. Friday has minor overlap, in that a show on one station ends a minute or two into the beginning Merlin on another channel, but don’t really miss anything important. Just some beginning fluff, or maybe a recap. Right now Wednesday and Thursday have shows on that I watch when I remember, and Sunday probably has another month worth of eps. The US version of Being Human started on Monday, so far it looks good, on the right network for it to work, but don’t know how long it will last, and Tuesday probably have around 12 weeks before that show goes into hiatus. My problems usually isn’t so much shows being on at the same time, but either all my shows are airing or none of them are. Few months of entertainment, followed by a few months of nothing.
TVD is still on air. Don’t know if last week’s ep was new, but I saw that the ep for this week will be.
Your torrent mention reminded me of this story. France trying to crackdown on piracy. Unfortunately this was the most up-to-date I could find.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article41655 19.ece
re Disney cross promos- do you mean actual news shows having bits or clips in fictional shows? No. I can’t remember ever seeing actual news footage or stories being used in any fictional show. Sometimes there will be fake news stories or stations that are very blantly based on a real story, or a station, spoofed or serious – depending on circumstances. There are some shows like 20/20 or Dateline that are on network stations that are supposedly taking more ‘in-depth- look at certain stories or issues. Usually they are so over dramatized that they aren’t worth watching. Then we have 60 Minutes, which is similar, but also clearly films seasons, like fictional shows, so miss out on a lot of issues, show reruns, and usually have one big story per ep with several gloss stories.
Re radium brushes- posted a clip awhile back from the show ‘1000 Ways to Die’ and the radium bit may have been a part of it, or it might have been a part of the Youtube’s side bar.
Re bright lights- know several years back there was a push over here to stop using neon lights, especially the big commercial ones, because of some environmental danger. Like leaking neon damaging the ozone or something. Don’t remember seeing a lot of the LED lights in big store signs, though. The LEDs that bother me the most are the holiday lights. Had bought a set for Halloween to put up in my dorm room one year, and had to take them down after about 20 minutes. Physically hurt to look at them, and made vision kind of wonky even after looking away from them. Big push right now where a lot of holiday lights are changing over. Can hardly find any Christmas lights that aren’t LED. Some of those aren’t as bad, but still hope there will always be another option.
Re noise- Dad refuses to admit his hearing is going, and would never wear the headphones. Have considered in the past getting the noise canceling ones, but always put off due to price. Do have a pair of earplugs like the ones construction people use from college that I’ve played with the idea of using again. Now just have to remember where I put them.
Re dentist drill- still think people would avoid it. Part of the noise travels through the jaw and up to the ears, which is about just as bad as the noise coming directly into the ear. Instrument I really hate from the dentist is one of the ones used to clean the teeth. Might be some kind of high pressured pick. Not sure, just know that I hate it.
Re nose whistle- maybe blow your nose before going to bed, or use a tissue to clean it out. Might be some obstruction placed just right to affect airflow. Works if mine starts making noise.
Re soothing noises- “Paranoid android” is kinda creepy. “Comfortably numb” not really doing a whole lot for me. Some that I’ve found I really like are the cover versions done by the Vitamin String Quartet Tribute group. They do a lot of string covers of “in” music that usually comes out pretty well. One of my favourties is their rendition of ‘Voodoo,’ originally by Godsmack. Some of it works better than others, though. Even those that don’t necessarily sound a lot like the original can be pretty decent, as long as you like string instrumentals. Trying to remember some of the other music I use, lot of instrumental.
For me, there is a difference between soothing and calming, though. Soothing is the light stuff used to get to sleep or light background noise. When in a bad/grumpy mood, I can find rock calming. Like I find this calming in certain situations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrtgIua1fjk
Or ‘American Idiot’ by Green Day, ‘Christmas Eve Sarajevo’ by Trans-Siberian Orchestra is another favourite, but I do know that the cello opening had a lot to do with bringing this song to my attention.
Re Australian plagues- can’t remember hearing about any plagues. Sometimes bad weather stories make the news. Depends on what is going on over here. Like the flooding has been covered a little bit, as in maybe a 30 second to 1 minute blurb on ‘oh look, bad rain and flooding is going on in Australia. A couple people have died and a bunch of businesses and homes have been ruined. And now this commercial.’ Kind of surprised we’ve heard as much as we have, and have seen it on for a couple of weeks now. Also surprised we haven’t heard more about the Brazilian flooding, actually. Guess they figure we’ve had enough nasty weather over here to not care about other problems. Some flooding and mudslides in LA, and snowstorms in the Midwest, Northeast, and even the Southeast. Some areas down south, which never see snow have gotten hit like every other week for the past month or so with bouts that dump around 2 to 6 inches.
Re Father Ted- whoops. Went back looking for it, and sound wasn’t great. As for finding the clip you’re looking for: I wish you luck. Know sometimes I go in looking for a song or tv clip, and get back the strangest crap. Happens mostly when I’m looking for tv clips.
Re IB scores- think we had one or two while I was at school. Good work to the kids that did, but sometimes it is easier to get high scores than others. They change the tests, think it was every 7 years, and in those first two years it is easier to score higher while they somehow calibrate the test.
Re Roy and H.G- might have seen that one before. Know it was a gymnastics one. Did find this one for the girls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crZVD1480iY&feature=related
re True Blue- never heard of it. Did a fast search on imdb, but there are so many that came up, I have no idea which. Hope you liked your choice.
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(Wow! For the first time I got this message when I tried to post this:
"Unable to process your request
* Your post is too long. It has been truncated.".)
* Writing v typing: I can type somewhat quickly...but the time I save over handwriting (if I do!) isn't made up with better spell checking etc. As for editing...tend to work on that on the spot...or days later, as you may have noticed...when I properly read something I've written!
* Grammar/teaching: agreed...don't see harm in red ink...especially if you don't lose marks for mistakes. My school experience isn't that recent...don't know if we have the red ink hang up here now. I do know that there was a phase - which may be continuing - re just being graded a Pass or Fail for certain assignments. Seems pretty minimalist. When I was in primary school I think we had a 'cute' grading system...elephant stamps...maybe coloured stars...maybe the latter had glitter on it if good...or maybe that was just girls being girly with what the teacher's gave them! Which reminds me...I used to get jealous of girls in later primary school...we had these comprehension cards...from memory I was on the primary or secondary colours, and the girls which were probably doing well were ont he exotic colours...like tan and aqua. Hmm. Din't hert me innyway.
* Maths - you remind me...in middle primary school especially, we used to do rounders time tables...a group of students would have to relay the times tables. The smart one I mentioned before - who had a maths teacher dad - fairly flew when his sum came up...if he got any wrong, I'm sure he was too quick to be spotted...sounded pretty unintelligble to me in any case...and he had a reputation for being smart, so no one would think he got it wrong. He could have said "Nibbity nib nickety nick" and everyone would think "Gosh, he is soo quick and good with his times tables!".
- re mental arithmetic...yeah, sometimes I get confused too...forget the specifics, but maybe it's to do with me seeing the change on the register and wanting to get an even amount back...and doing the wrong sum...i.e. working on the change cited on the register v what the actual amount after the decimal is for the total purchase.
- something that has also bugged me...once I did my own mental arithmetic in a store and I got it wrong...the guy went on my word...I'm pretty sure he knew I was wrong, but just liked the idea of getting however many cents extra for the transaction because of my mistake. Tried stealing something from there by way of revenge for this 'injustice' but got spotted...hid item in something else. Still bugs me that that guy ripped me off...happened years ago! Still plotting revenge...if the store still exists I'm hoping maybe someone will give me $50 change instead of 50c. That would be cool.
- related...one time in a store I was buying something...needed to check something and hands full...so put the item in my pocket so I could do that checking...store guy right near me. Took the item out of my pocket right before I got to the register...dunno...was hoping that made me look less shifty. Hmm. Do you think I'm going to Hell after my last two confessions? At least the guy who guy who gave change on my mental arithmetic will be there with me if I do!
* Learning languages - well, I gave some examples of that here...Japanese...years ago deemed an immportant language for us to learn...but Japan flatlining for many years now, economically. Trouble with trying to pick winners. Looks like Chinese might be a surer bet.
- re yous learning Spanish...I posted up that Dame Edna comment here re that, right? The one about what on Earth you'd say to your Mexican gardener or something. The other thing which you don't seem to acknowledge...isn't there an advantage for YOUS to speak Spanish? As in they're a growing part of your country...maybe the language will be the most common in the US sometime? So, it's not just a nicety to learn it for the whiteys in the US...it may actually become an economic imperative? Just a thought.
- Hmm...I wonder if there is a difference between immersion and cramming. I think there is. I would have had those maths camps as immersion, but maybe it's just a form of cramming. Dunno. In high school I remember reading maybe a couple of hundred pages late into the night of Leon Uris'...? Something about the Warsaw ghetto uprising or something. Had a test on it, so started reading this monster book. Think I passed, but it was a crazy technique to try. Really wish I could fly through text like that now! For some reason my reading has slowed down considerably...and I'm not very focused.
* Amazon - this is news in Australia now...some retail chains are pushing for sites like Amazon to charge a GST on items under a $1000, so they can be more competitive against these sites. But apaprently, even if we had to pay GST at Amazon, their prices would still be lower. I'm thinking of boycotting Amazon, because of their stance on Julian Assange...but if no other site offers the goods I want at a reasonable price, then I might just have to grit my teeth. By their Assange stance, I just mean punishing the guy for old news that other media outlets have reported on anyway. Odd that such trivial info would inspire such anger in the US. Wonder what would happen if he had some really explosive info, analogous to the stuff the White House tried to keep secret during the Vietnam War etc.
- leaving politics aside...Amazon is also bugging me now because I think they are in the business of selling postage and handling...it costs me more to have stuff sent from the home of capitalism (the US) to Australia than to return it! In other words, P&H is overpriced for some reason...and the same store will send items separately even if you buy in one transaction. Sucks. Hopefully China will offer up an alternative!
- re region codes...another American scam...maybe I'm sort of pleased an American is feeling its bite! Australia is region 4, I think, so US companies charge a premium (like you are for LOM) for movies over here. If it was all just one region, then we could Amazon or whatever for the best price. 'Accidentally' bought a calibration DVD which is apparently only region 1 compatible. Be good if my PS3 could play it...had hassles with Amazon store over cancelling this order...I get a refund, keep the dvd, but still have to pay the P&H. It's all about the P&H! They used to have a one hour window to cancel, I think, but it's now down to 30 minutes. Another reason Amazon is shytting me at the moment.
* Blue ray prices - I've recently been 'forced' into buying equipment...my 34 cm crt tv died so I got a nice 1080p 80cm lcd screen. That mucked up my feel for a Playstation 2 game I was playing...so I was 'forced' to buy a PS3 as I didn't fancy playing that PS2 game since I couldn't do as well as I did on my crt. Anyway, over here we have the JB Hi Fi chain. Big discounters. They're discounting blue ray movies. Actually bought 3 blue ray movies, I think, though I might not view them for yonks. They have deals like 3 for $30 or something of the sort. And the titles were stuff I liked or thought I might...well known stuff.
- with my PS3, since it's taken me yonks to get it, there is a big selection of games at Platinum or discounted prices. Went into one chain here and saw Bioshock for $109. Asked if that was right at the counter. It wasn't. Got it for $30, I think. Playing that now. Great value. Got the Uncharted games for around the $40 odd mark. Enjoyed those too. Couldn't you get stuff like this cheap at Amazon? I'm getting these prices in chains...sounds like you are getting ripped off. Though I did hear that the tv I bought I could have paid substantially less for in the US. Swings and roundabouts. Haven't heard anything yet about PS4. Good source? Hearsay?
* Noam Chomsky docu - it was called "Manufacturing consent". Based on his book. I really enjoyed Moore's "Capitalism" too. Good stuff. There's a pretence in the US, maybe, that there is no such thing as class or class warfare. In "Capitalism" you got it right from the horse's mouth...the ultra rich advisers...ironic, really, as the phrase 'class warfare' usually implies poor people complaining about what the rich get away with! Did read something about Fox News being in trouble over their constant abuse of the word "Nazi"...their pundits apparently labelled a Jewish banker a Nazi! Memory foggy, but I did hear something interesting on a topic like this...about how people use terms that apply to themselves on other people, in a negative way...forget the context though...oh yeah..."elites!!". Those that actually BELONG to the elite like to use this term of abuse on people that bug them...maybe the Michael Moore types. Might have to edit in a source for this sometime later.
* Divinyls - my view is that with the bands I like a lot from Australia, they tend to break through in the US with absolute rubbish or their last great work. Used to love "I touch myself" but am over it now. They had a later minor hit in the US, I think, with "Ain't gonna eat out my heart". Like the guitar lick in that, but not a fave. Icehouse had a couple of top 40 breakthrough hits in the US...absolutely rubbish...one song was co-written by a fave US act...Hall & Oates...well, one of the two. Icehouse's debut album is my pick as the greatest debut album of all time...of the ones I've heard. Many songs on that still get radio play over here now, and I'm not tired of them. Did you like "Science fiction" or it's not your type of music?
I'll give a few more songs:
Sleeping beauty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Veq6hW2-kqQ
(heard this song below on the radio some months back...don't think I'd heard it before, but it's pretty much an instant classic for me)
Good die young
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KfGEJQgsTo
(I thought the song below might interest you as a girl...this was their breakthrough song, I think, off of a soundtrack which used a few of their songs)
Boys in town
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMSyumchMWA
* Cricket - re Muttiah Muralitharan, you're saying the Sri Lankan spinner was trying to hit the batsmen in the balls? Wasn't expecting that! Was wondering if his bowling style caught your attention. Anyway, re hitting batsmen's balls...batsmen where a 'box'...'protectors'...plastic cups 'down there'! It's not the spinners you have to worry about...even a box won't make being hit in the balls at 160 kmh unpainful. Spinners don't get near 100 kmh, I don't think. Generally they're trying to get batsman to misjudge the flight of the ball or get deceived by the spin. You didn't find Muttiah's bowling interesting for any reason?
- did hear something not that long ago about the speed of the fastest baseball pitchers...maybe surprisingly the fastest pitchers are comparable in speed to the fastest bowlers in cricket. That clip I gave had the fast bowlers bowling in front of striped backdrop...makes me think that measurements of speed might therefore be more scientific. Just wondered how dodgy their in game measurements were, or without the stripes...perhaps such technology better now than in the mid 70s? Nowadays you get a speed for every ball delivered in cricket, at least in the top nations.
- Haven't really watched cricket since I was in high school. Shane Warne was really exciting though...not something people normally say of spin bowlers! He just spun the ball a mile and always looked like getting a batter out with his next ball. I remember reading my cousin's books by Australian cricketers...never really say guys like Lillee and Thomson at their best (probably too young or not interested in cricket at that point), but the stories on Thommo, especially, were exciting. I saw Lillee on tv when he would sometimes play to the crowd at the MCG...75,000 people say, all changint "Li-llee, Lill-ee" as he came in to bowl. One time he pushed off from the boundary fence! That's gotta be a ridiculous 50 metre plus run up! Thommo could bowl faster of a really short run. Found this You Tube...really good...you were speaking of being hit in the balls?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PXRTraA1tY
- like I said before, I think, with NBA, it just seems running up the court, score, rinse and repeat. Think I've heard the point that many Americans just find the last few minutes of a game interesting enough to want to watch. With cricket, when I was into it, the spells when nothing was happening (Lillee walking to his mark for his run up etc) never really bothered me...it's a different pace though.
* Temperature - from memory, 38 degrees Celsius is 100 degrees Fahrenheit. You'd get this factoid on the weather forecasts...maybe they still do. Being getting temperatures around this high this week...summer has come late. As far as the cricket speed tests went, I'm not sure valid an excuse the heat was...it's not like they were playing under test match conditions. Which made me wonder about the measurements...they weren't using the striped backdrop for the televised "World's fastest bowler" thingy, I don't think. The speeds of the top bowlers were markedly slowed for the tv show...the quoted figures didn't seem scary at all. Thommo seemed to have a good excuse though...he hadn't been playing competitively for a while. Slow speeds for ALL of them? When I do see highlights for cricket now, the fastest bowlers are generally bowling at a minimum of mid 140s and higher...into 150s. Thommo was getting near or over 160, I think. Assuming that that is 100 mph.
- years ago I was watching Wimbledon (our commentators sometimes call it "Wimpleton" for some reason...strange) and the English were saying it was a heatwave. Must have been mid 20s. In Australia that's not a heatwave! (as Paul Hogan might have said). On the news here sometimes, you might get a report of the city sweltering with 40+ degrees and pictures of girls sunbaking! Crazy. However, some weeks back I was driving around for the first time in years in temperatures of maybe 28 degrees (Wimbledon heatwave style) and I got my first sunburn for donkey's years. Last year or the year before we'd get days on end of 40 degree plus weather...mid 40s even. Walking around noon, using an umbrella (which I've taken to doing in the last year or so) it was like a frickin' oven. As I wrote this, it's pouring down...effect of the massive cyclone further north up the country...apparently Cyclone Yasi was bigger than Hurricane Katrina. Good thing it didn't hit the capital. Bad luck comes in threes...only weeks ago that state had been having floods. Looks like more for them now due to the cyclone, not just a lot of rain.
* TV schedules - it sounds like you get messed around with a lot less with programmes than we do. Here networks try to spoil other network's shows by running overtime...and, of course, the other networks respond by having shows run over time. So, advertised starting times can be behind some 5 or 10 or 15 minutes. Delayed popular shows also inflate the figures of other shows, apparently, since the timeframes for ratings are in 15 minute blocks, I think. All pretty dodgy.
- With digital channels now (you have a lot of those in the US?) it's getting ridiculous, as far as keeping up with programme debuts and returns. Actually, I've recently started culling what I watch...into Bioshock on PS3 at the moment, so that's another incentivating factor. Here's what I'm dropping...or thinking about dropping:
1. V - I just let out an audible groan when it started dumping those favourite (for Americans) themes...religion. Don't want religious blah and chat about 'souls'. Very soapy. The Terminator series got axed, and that had overlap as far as religion...maybe the story was keeping it interesting enough for me to watch, but the show didn't continue.
2. The Vampire Diaries? - Thought I was watching a new episode on my PVR, but it was an old one. Misremembered what I was looking to rewatch in the old show, and the soapy stuff just grated. Deleted it. Got the new ep on my PVR, but think I'll delete it too. Very soapy...grind to watch.
3. Nurse Jackie - the fat nurse is cute/amusing, but just doesn't engage me enough. Chose to play Bioshock in my PS3, which I'm really into.
4. The Office? - it's been on my "Drop?" list, but I'm watching the 'new' series now...the plot twist of Michael starting up his own company may keep me on it for a bit more. All these shows are on digital channels...most of the stuff I watch is! I.e. not the main channels.
5. Desperate housewives? - I missed the start of the new series by a few minutes and considered not watching, but an early scene gave me a laugh, so I think I'll stick with it.
6. The Simpsons? - It's not great, and now it seems to have competition from other networks. We'll see. Even the Halloween specials don't grab me that much.
7. Smallville? - Hasn't been on the main network for years and is now on their new digital channel. Not sure where they are picking it up from...running eps back to back, which is too much of a grind for me. If they're eps I've seen, fine. If not, I've missed the boat...which is also fine for me. Really looking forward to a different way of watching tv...eps at a time I like...commercial tv sucks.
8. Supernatural? One of those droppable shows I'm still watching. 'Interesting' twist last year, bringing God/Satan into the picture (!)...sort of interesting (unlike V)...now they seem to be moving away from that. Try hard show that's not that good.
9. Caprica? One of those iffy shows...the decision on whether to drop it or not has been taken from me...I hear it's been axed in the US. Not sure whether the network here showed all of what was broadcast in the US.
10. Gene Simmons Family Jewels? Novelty has worn off. Very fake 'reality' show. Stopped watching a week or two back. Network been showing 2 eps back to back.
What I like in US shows:
- Californication. Last ep a classic...a poo throwing monkey for starters!
- Breaking bad. Into 1st series. Looking forward to next.
- Weeds. Still terrific.
- 30 Rock.
- Dexter.
- Mad men. 2nd series improved.
- House. Still liking it.
- Family Guy/South Park. South Park and maybe the Simpsons make fun of Family Guy, but at its best, Family Guy is better than both of them. It's not always at its best though. Haven't seen new eps of South Park in a while...not sure what the deal is there...moved to a major network now instead of poorly funded (by the government) network SBS?
- United states of Tara. Not bad.
* France's internet laws - sounds like they are buddying up to the US. From what I've been reading, the US has been screwing other countries in the free trade agreements it signs with them. Including Australia. We've signed up to the US' intellectual property schemes. That includes extending the period that works are copyright. What's annoying is this...Disney plundered folk lore for its movies, where it paid nothing for these, but it's copyrighting all that stuff...and extending the copyright on it by decades. Bit of hypocrisy there, I think. And it seems Australia is getting much in return for the huge concessions it's made to the US on these issues. Basically, we gave the US everything it wanted, and they promised to...maybe, if the weather's fine, do something in return for us. So, we do something concrete for the US whilst they promise to maybe do something in return. Hmm.
* re news and cross promotions - well, the commercial networks here will somehow contrive to have a non story appear in their news in order to include footage from a new or old show that they are airing. So, the story might be something years old about what a criminal did, but they will show it portrayed in the new show...as if that is news.
- speaking of spoof news...I was a fan of the Australian satirical show CNNNNN. Here they satirise shows like "A current affair" and "Today tonight"...it's a compilation of promos for their version of that show (i.e. the uploader has editing them in to one clip. Personally I find these segments funny because they string together many recurring targets of the real show into one story):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHso1e6NY90
Not sure I've posted these guys before. Some of their street talk segments with Americans in America were funny, but cheap shots...this one below is actually one of the good ones...made me laugh...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS3_hT_FUNQ
* re noise - I think that maybe you can cancel noise without the headphones...i.e. just have loud speakers 'reflect' ambient noise. I personally use those cheap yellow foam earplugs at night time. They don't block out the noise of an annoying dove like bird in the mornings though!
* re Vitamin String Quartet Tribute - listening to Clocks now, an all time favourite song of mine by Coldplay. Personally I find the original prettier. Looked at some titles by them but it seems to be stuff that either doesn't interest me or I'm unfamiliar with. Have enjoyed Apocalyptica's instrumental versions of Metallica songs, e.g.
Fade to black
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x97f-_y93a0
* re Soothing v calming - hmm, it's not a distinction I would have made off hand, but thinking about it now, I suppose I could say that "calming" is maybe something that implies bringing you down from an agitated state...perhaps. So, maybe different music for each case. Astounded that you find that Zoids thing calming! It uses the Sex Pistols' lyric "No future", it seems.
* re Roy & H.G. - I think I may have passed that clip over you gave before...glorious mono! Was hoping to find one where they use the phrase "I'm a princess!" as their alternative terminology for a gymnastics move. It looks like the Aussie girls didn't do that move. That's what I find funny about the two...just a whole other lingo. They did some funny stuff with the synchronised swimming...suggesting that the moves were stories that the swimmers were telling. Total bs, of course, but all the more funny for it.
* re True Blue - typo. I meant True Blood! Still haven't take up that offer of the first series on dvd and the PS3 remote.
P.S. re A2A...starting to think that maybe the show is going to Dark City territory. That's a fave movie of mine...the similarity to that movie in a Buffy promo was what got me onto Buffy. Anyway, been 2 or 3 eps of A2A which mentions stars...so, wondering if about the Dark City trajectory.
P.P.S. the other days I heard a story about cricketers from America's mean streets...think the same team was mentioned in the news here a year or so ago...they're actually touring now and they were mentioned in the Victorian ABC TV news (09/02/2011) and last night (10/02/2011)on the 7.30 Report. Caught the tail end of it, but just watched the whole story online. It sort of reminds me of the first team from Australia to tour Britain...an all aboriginal team, surprisingly, late in the 19th century, I think. The American team are being pioneers too...cricket as a form of betterment in a dangerous environment in Los Angeles. Not sure if you can view the video via the link below (which runs just short of five and half minutes)...if not, there is a transcript, if you are interested:
Video
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201102/r716683_5656941.asx
Transcript
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3135751.htm
Other mentions on ABC website
http://bit.ly/hLuoC9
Not sure how much this other story will interest you, but there was something on a female Australian player being the first woman to play a competitive match in a mens side here:
http://bit.ly/aOKIHa
Looking for that story, I see that the story was false!
http://bit.ly/e9IQbh
Word count: 4130 (Ouch! Wasn't expecting that much! Record? Including edit in at start of post)
I bow down to your superior word count. Think that broke the old record by a few hundred. Don’t know what the imdb character limit is for posts, but I just got nailed with it.
Re grading systems- in elementary we had behaviour systems that if we were good we would get rewards at the end of the month or semester. It usually depended on the teacher, but I think the most common was a single piece of candy. It was a colour code system, that oddly enough red meant you were good. Think purple was the worse. As for grading, there is too much emphasis on not making the kids feel bad vs actually teaching them something. What is going to happen when they have a job and something goes wrong? Seriously doubt their boss is going to stand there and say it is okay. Just try harder next time. More likely they’re going to get yelled at and there will be consequences.
Re getting change- I prefer cards to hard cash, mostly. A lot of the time when I’m buying stuff, it is running errands for my parents. Have a card that is a part of their account and usually use that, especially since they don’t give me money to make their purchases. When I’m buying stuff for myself, prefer cash because have better sense of the effect. Know it sounds stupid, but if I’m handling the cash it hits more than sliding a card through a reader.
Re getting one over- think everyone is looking to get one over on stores, especially if they are the big retailers, or if it is a smaller store with an evil store owner. Worked for this one place on one of my summer breaks. It was a small, privately owned museum that had a small gift shop and a snack bar. Personally never thought it was anything that great, but it somehow has become a tourist thing. I ran the snack bar, which was a bit removed from the gift shop and museum. The lady that ran both was okay, but was pretty uptight. Anyways, we had some Asian visitors come through the city, can’t remember if they were Chinese or Japanese; think they were Japanese. The museum was supposed to have a few different groups of these visitors over two days. First day they were there, one of them accidentally broke a plate in the gift shop, and the owner went off on that person, apparently making a big scene in the middle of the store. (Was my day off so didn’t see it first hand) Needless to say, the people that were supposed to come through on the second day never showed up. I think most of the customers that came through and had any real interaction with her wished they could get one over on her. Luckily she stayed behind the scenes more, so didn’t drive the customers or us too insane.
Speaking of getting one over, Microsoft would be my number one target right now. I got a Mac when I started college, and it has worked great since then, no problems, etc. So when the family computer gave out again, we replaced it with a Mac instead of a Windows based one. The Mac didn’t come with Office. My mom had been doing something for work her work computer at home in Word and needed to get it printed out here. Due to how the work computer is set up, we can’t install our printer on it. I still had the install disc for Office from when I installed it on my Mac, and went ahead and put it on the home one so she could get that done. Now it is a 2004 version of Office; it was 2 years old when I bought it originally, nor was it ever registered online, just the info that it has always needed in the past for the initial set up. As soon as she opened Word on the other computer, mine kicked me off. Really? Microsoft is so hard pressed for money that they track every install through the net now and police even the legal discs. One company that beyond pisses me off any more. Just glad the Apples came back for some competition. Apples high prices are annoying, but at least I know they work. Mine’s 5 years old and has yet to give me any grief. With our old Windows computers that was about the time they’d all start giving us grief.
Re learning Spanish- The Latin American population is not the only non-English speaking population growing quickly, though. It is just, for whatever reason, the one that is being pandered to. There has been a large Chinese population for over a hundred years, and in Chinatowns there are areas that you better know Chinese or be with someone who does to get any sort of business done, but none of the Chinese expect people outside of the Chinatowns to know Chinese for them, or for any instructions, signs, etc to be in Chinese. There is also a large Vietnamese population. Again, no one panders to them. The people coming over from India, the Middle East, parts of Africa, yet all of them learn English to communicate and don’t expect people to know their language. And there would be an even bigger incentive to learn any of the dozen of languages the people coming from India or the Middle East would be speaking, as many open/run gas/petrol stations. With as dependent on cars as we are over here, they could hold most of the country hostage and demand people doing business with them do so in their original language, but they’ve learned English. The whole language thing is one of many that makes no sense. Everybody that doesn’t speak Spanish, must learn English to go through the course and all the other junk that goes with being a US citizen, but if you speak Spanish, somewhere along the line the right people have decided you’re special and the classes that everyone else has to take in English, because they aren’t offered in their original language, are available to you in Spanish.
Re immersion vs cramming- most academic camps are forms of cramming. Though, don’t know if I’ve ever heard of immersion learning for anything other than language.
Re Amazon- (GST? Assuming that is taxing system?) We have sites over here that usually beat Amazon, price wise. Looking for a cd that haven’t been able to find in stores, and a major bookstore chain has it cheaper at their site. One of the reasons I use the uk one is because I know what I’m dealing with, so if something happens to go wrong, it will be easier to fix. Also, sometimes trying to search for uk based sites can be difficult. Get a lot of junk before finding anything decent, and just not a huge fan of ebay. What is getting really bad over here is trying to find cds that aren’t main stream in stores. Everyone, from the bookstores to the electronic stores to the department stores, are cutting back on what they carry and the amount. Curse download music every time I go looking for something and the only place I can find it is the internet. I like to browse and flip through the discs, damnit. And I want a GOOD copy of the music that downloads don’t always give.
Related to the Microsoft blurb from above, Amazon was the cheapest place to find Office. They were about $25 cheaper than anywhere else, and it had free shipping. This time bought the multi-install disc, though. Doesn’t make any sense. For a single install it is $100; for 3 installs it is $110 – on amazon. Everywhere else has it for $120 and $150, respectively.
As for shipping, can’t remember a time when it hasn’t been overpriced. Always hope that I can find enough on sites for free shipping to kick in. Granted it takes longer, but if I’m ordering it online, I can usually get away without needing it immediately. When I was applying for grad school, had to overnight some stuff, and that was outrageous. It is just irritating because vehicles are going that way to start with, but I guess you’re paying for the employees to move faster when sorting stuff.
Re region codes- I don’t know if there is an equivalent for the PS3, but I’ve heard that like Playstation and PS2 could run region free with the game genie devices. Personally think the region thing is total bs. Promotes torrents and illegal downloads more than anything else, and anybody that does a bit of research can find cheaper ways than buying the imports, at least over here.
Re blue rays/games- haven’t seen any deals like that over here as of yet. Every once in awhile see some thrown in bargain bins, but they’re usually stuff that was straight to dvd originally, not many people know it, etc. With the games, got used to being able to pick up games for $20 when they hit the most played list or best seller or whatever it is. Decent prices at least for good games. I don’t buy games online. Why? I don’t know. There is obviously a larger selection online, but just haven’t been able to bring myself to buying games online yet. Think part of it is because I’m just a casual gamer, and don’t typically play the more ‘hard core’ games. I’ve never really had the skill set to make it very far. With GoldenEye for N64, a friend’s brother borrowed it and got most of it unlocked for me.
Re PS4- I think it was in an online article that was talking about the 3D DS that is coming out. It might have been around the time of the E3 Gaming Expo in LA last year. Probably a decent source, but with it being an insider expo there’s no way to tell how far off in the future the ‘soon’ might be indicating. It was either in an article like that or one comparing the PS Move, Wii, and Xbox kinect. Did you get the move feature with your system? Like with the Wii, some of it looks interesting, but we just don’t have a space where it would work.
Re Divinyls- “Science Fiction” is okay, but it isn’t going to be making a fav list anytime soon. Some of the high notes had me cringing. “Sleeping Beauty” and “Good Die Young” were okay. My issue with a lot of 80s music is there is something they use that hits the right frequency that gives me pretty much an instant headache. Not really sure what it is; thought it was a synthesizer, but don’t see one. Must be something with a guitar. “Boys in Town” was probably my favourite out of that set. Don’t know why, but for some reason it reminded me of Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield,” which makes no sense when listening to them side by side. This has probably been my favourite of the Divinyls that I’ve heard.
Back to the Wall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n58LObdsims&feature=related
re cricket- over here the ‘box’ guys wear are just called cups. Have always wondered how much use they actually are in some cases. As for finding Muttiah’s bowling interesting, I think I just don’t have the experience with cricket to really know what would make it interesting versus normal. Did notice he had much straighter bowl towards the batsman than Warne, and he had a great record apparently, but other than that, didn’t really notice much.
Re speed measuring tech- much better now than in 70s, most likely cheaper too. Think everybody from college up has measuring instruments for baseball. Know on tv, they always give the speed of the pitch, at least with US leagues. Know baseball is big in Japan, and can’t imagine them not measuring.
Re YT cricket clip- always fun to hear how the guy throwing the ball is looking to injury the guy with the bat. Great quote @ 0:32 “I’m probably trying to scare ‘im. Probably trying to hurt ‘im more than anything else.” Read some of the comments. Is trying to hurt the batsman not allowed any more? Pretty bad when a guy gets hit in the head with it has to be carried off the pitch. As for running up, I can understand a little bit of a run, but the boundary fence one sounds like overkill. At a certain point it is just show and no gain.
Re temps- 38 C = 100 F, but with the funky equation, 40 C = 104 F. Who remembers
(F-32) x 5/9=C or (Cx1.8)+32=F ?
Did find one on the USGS site that is (Cx2)-(Cx2x0.1)+32=F which when explained in steps is at least a bit easier, though not much. Don’t know why the US keeps hanging on to F and feet/inches when everyone else uses metric. Just give it up already and make everyone’s lives easier and switch to metric.
As for forecasts, online you can sometimes get both C and F, but you have to tick a box to get it to pop up, otherwise it is just F. On tv there is no C temps given at all. Area I’m in seems to be in a cooler pattern for the year over all. Miserably cold winter temps, wind chills down to -34 C with reg temps around -17 C, Finally got warm for a few days so what snow we did have melted, but as I’m writing we’re getting a snow and ice storm hitting. At least the temps are right around freezing, and it is supposed to be a bit above tomorrow. Summers have been around 30 to 35 C, though the heat index can get up there and make it feel much worse.
Re tv schedule- I think the FCC might have something to do with it, or they figure people wouldn’t put up with it and they’d loose viewer because no one would bother tuning in since start times would be all over the board. Channels are having enough problems with people playing catch up online instead of tuning in while the show is airing on tv. Will have to look for and edit in later, but found an article online saying that most people don’t even really know what they are watching. Study didn’t make much sense to me, but said that people didn’t usually know what channel they were watching or didn’t realize what show they were actually watching. Whole thing just sounded odd. When I think about my parents, though, my dad never seems to know what channel he is on or what he is watching, though he has seen some of the same movies played on tv 50,000 times and still can’t tell you what happens. My mom has shows she watches regularly, but still has a hard time remembering which network they’re on. One show ‘Worse Cooks in America,’ took her over half the season before she could remember what time it started.
One of the biggest problems we have is networks moving what day the show airs on, particularly when it is coming back from hiatus. Watch this one show, ‘White Collar.’ Think it started on a Tuesdays, then Thursdays, then Fridays, and now it is on on Tuesdays. Each of those moves corresponded to when the show came back on the air. Another show I watch started life on Wednesdays because the network was hoping to boost ratings by having it follow a successful show, which seemed to work. So when it got enough followers they moved it to Thursday so that it could be a lead in for a new show. Now, it is coming back from hiatus on St. Pats Day (a Thursday this year) with a live special, but the regular air time for the show will be Tuesday. Think they are trying to use it as a lead in show again, but the show set to follow it doesn’t really work - too different a type of show.
I know we have digital channels, and this past summer the broadcast signal for free channels switched to a digital signal, which did add some channels for people that only have free tv. For cable, I don’t know the whole ins and outs of it. They do advertise digital cable, which I guess is different than regular cable, but not sure. I know we have a low/mid range cable set up, so we get some decent channels, bunch of junk, but no premium channels and no super specialized channels, ie just get History channel and not History: Military channel.
V- not surprised that religion is coming into it. Didn’t have much interest when first heard about, so never started watching, but I did find out a couple weeks after it started airing that it is a remake of a 50s or 60s show of the same title. During that time there was a lot of stuff made in Hollywood that would have symbolism of commies bad, we good thing going on, and religion would usually come in at some point.
TVD- on at a bad time for me, it seems to be moving or at least they are doing reruns on a different night, so I really don’t know what is going on with it, but agree that the new eps that I’ve seen are very soapy. The new books that the series was based on are suffering a similar plight. I blame the Twilight addiction for this.
Nurse Jackie- I thought there were only a few seasons of that ever made. Remember there was a bit of a stink over here when the lead female went to play a big role in ‘Glee.’ Never saw it, was on a premium channel over here.
The Office- never got into it. For some reason I just can’t get into any mockumentaries.
Desperate Housewives- I liked and watched season 1, and after that it went completely downhill for me. It has become like a high quality soap, and convinced the only reason of the higher quality is because they have so many fewer eps.
Simpsons- another show I’ve never been able to get into. Had a math teacher in high school that thought it was a really great thing.
Smallville and Supernatural I never got into. Watched an ep or two of Smallville when an actor I liked was a guest on the show. Didn’t much care for it. Supernatural I’ve seen one full ep that feature the archangel Gabriel. Liked Gabriel, but then he got killed, at least that was the way it seemed. Didn’t much care for either of the leads. Seemed kind of wooden.
Caprica I watch sort of as background when I come across it. It has been canceled. From what I saw on the network’s site, there are still 5 unaired eps. Don’t know anything about those.
Gene Simmons- again no interest, though his son wasn’t half bad looking the last time I saw him in an ad for it. Know that is no incentive for you though ;)
Californication, Weeds, Dexter, United States of Tara all on premium channels so have never seen. Thought Weeds had been canceled, but maybe it was brought back. Not a Tina Fey fan, so 30 Rock, bleh. Breaking Bad never got into, Mad Men saw parts of several eps and didn’t like any of it. House I enjoy, but new eps are on at a bad time for me, so I usually just see the reruns.
Family Guy can be okay. Mostly a Brian and Stewie fan, but another show I’ll use as background noise or as something mindless to watch. South Park watch every once in a great while. We have a lot of channels over here that have syndication rights to it, and there are times a really old ep will be on one channel, flip around when it is over and a ep that is only like a year old will be on another. Interesting to see the differences.
(Yeah! Reached part 2 of post!)
re news & cross promo- don’t remember ever seeing anything like that. Closest I can think to something like that are the cop shows that adapt real life into scripts. All of the ‘Law & Order’ franchise supposedly has stories ‘ripped from the headlines,’ but then always put the disclaimer up that the story is fictional, etc, and so forth.
Re CNNNN- they seem to have an unhealthy obsession with fat kids. Do like how on the promos they manage to make everything connect.
Re street talk- I know of at least one show over here that does segments like this, or at least they use to, assume they still do. ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’ has a segment called Jay-Walking were they go into the Universal Theme Park in LA and ask 2 or 3 simple questions and get some absolutely retarded answers. Think one time he said it usually only takes about half an hour of work to get enough material to put together a segment that is about 5 minutes cut together. While some of the answers are funny, at the end I always find myself amazed at how stupid people are.
Re Apocalyptica- wow! That is all I can say. Just WOW! Played the cello in school 5-12 with a semester off in 11 because of scheduling conflicts, wasn’t great – don’t trust my fingers enough to be a very good player – but knowing how difficult average cello music is, to hear someone do this. Again, wow. Obviously biased, but have had a soft spot for non-conventional cello ever since.
Re calming- I’m weird in that in an agitated state, peaceful music does little to calm me down, and can sometimes go the opposite. Loud, semi-angry, stuff, and stuff like ‘No Future” works better to bring me down. Don’t know enough about the artist that sings ‘No Future’ to know if there was Sex Pistol influence. Looked up the lyrics to both and there wasn’t really similarities.
Re True Blood- gave up on it. The way they were adapted just got boring, and with all the characters – major or minor – constantly having problem after problem, it began to remind me of a soap. Writers just don’t leave anyone alone. Gets old. Did have a little bit of eye candy, but that only goes so far. Watched season 3 just for something to watch.
Re A2A- won’t say much about it. Had to look back, and saw it was almost a year since I’ve seen it. Hard to believe it’s been that long.
Re Compton Cricket- this is hardly the first time that someone has tried to get a club together to save inner city youth. Didn’t see many youth in his program. Looked like more homeless guys or guys that had already been through the gangs, and don’t know how many kids period are interested in a gentleman and etiquette sport. There is a lot of that where old bangers try to get something going to keep kids out. Varying success rates. Whenever they show vids or pics of the groups, you see a lot of younger kids, but no teenagers. More common set ups are for football (US) or basketball. Again, don’t know how successful they are. A lot of it starts at home, and a lot of the home lives are really screwed up.
Was sort of a culture shock with the reporter’s comment that ‘Compton is an urban environment unimaginable in Australia.’ And like how all the file footage looks like it is at least 10 years old.
Re women’s sports- is interesting to see the sexes mixing in sports. I think there might be some coed soccer stuff around, but nothing really serious. Any serious club tends to be divided. Are women’s sports very popular over there? Mainstream women’s sports tend not to get a whole lot of attention. Didn’t know until I think two years ago that there is actually a professional women’s US football league, though pro is a loose term. Most of the players aren’t paid; just a handful, and there are pee-wee fields that look nicer and have bigger crowds.
Word count: 4084
Btb - I've posted up all my thoughts on the A2A finale in the board for the UK series. Hey, when did the show screen in the US?
I wasn't sure if I had topped your word count...you gave an incorrect link to your record breaking post a while back...I'd have to trawl through your posts to try and find that mention...but then I'd probably get directed to the wrong post...not the one where you broke the record! I get the impression that maybe this word limit is something new.
Interesting re you getting lollies when you did well in school...wonder if there's a link between obesity and doing well in school!
re your snack shop boss - you ever seen Fawlty Towers? This might be the most famous sequence from the show...the hotel owner Basil Fawlty is suffering from concussion...but his personality hasn't changed much!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xnNhzgcWTk
re getting one over shop keepers...I remember ordering some food in a pie store and someone coming in asking to change Canadian money for Australian money. How would anyone know if the Canadian money was legit? I think the shop girl asked a superior about it...I would have thought that was a straight "NO!"! The request was denied though. Assuming that the 'customer' was just trying one on.
re Apples v Microsoft...you thought of doing a testimonial for Apple? re Microsoft, years ago, when I had cable, I think, I saw a movie called "Pirates of Silicon Valley"...about the start ups which went gangbusters in the 70s or whenever it was. What I found ironic was this...in the movie Bill Gates pumps a woman at Xerox for info on their OS at a meeting. She doesn't want to give the info, but her superiors see no problem with it. Gates now has info to turn his OS into a graphical interface, instead of his line command system. Now, Bill Gates is against people stealing his intellectual property? Getting it for nothing? Really? What a hypocrite!
re Spanish speaking in the US...aren't they the largest ethnic group in the US? Is that just Mexicans or other people of South American origin?
re immersion...yeah, only get hits for it re bilingualism. I thought maybe spending the holidays studying only maths might count as immersion...I'm not sure that that would count as "cramming" though. New word needed? Dunno.
re GST and Amazon. Yeah, "Goods and services tax". It's been in the news here in Australia recently...our bricks and mortar retailers want GST on stuff bought on sites like Amazon, as we can buy from sites like that without paying GST. Did read one article though which said that even IF we charged GST on sites like Amazon, they would STILL be much cheaper than our retailers! One of our retailers have set up an online site based in China to try and be on an equal footing with the likes of China. That's the argument...no GST on online shops, and retailers here will go offshore, so we lose jobs here.
re music...stores over don't even stock mainstream cds by artists I used to have on cassette. E.g. Billy Joel's studio albums...they usually have only 2 or 3 of his titles. Same goes for Elton John. Borders here used to have a moderately sized cd section. Gorn. One thing that bugs me now though is that often jewel cases are being replaced by digipaks. MGMT's "Oracular spectacular" had a bad one...cheap and nasty. Hard to pull out the cd and you're likely to get fingerprints on it to get a good hold or scratch it. The Japanese do quality digipaks, but I do prefer the jewel cases.
re shipping...to return stuff to Amazon stores costs me around $4-5. They charge me, from memory, around US$7-8 to send it here. It seems a scam to me. Our post office is government funded. So much for the free market in the US! There's also the exchange rate...I was sending stuff back before the Australian dollar was worth more than the US dollar. As for shipping discounts...gosh, Amazon offers those...spend $x on their overpriced cds and save! You have to buy more than you intended to, and you have to spend more than you intended to to 'save'! I've done comparisons...it works out cheaper to buy cds from Amazon stores than from Amazon itself...you save so much on the cds that the 'discount' Amazon offers on free shipping isn't even competitive with their alternatives!
You mentioned GoldenEye for the N64. I BRIEFLY owned it! Got jack of it very early on...climbing up a spiral staircase, I think and having to shoot an enemy there. I've hardly ever used weapons...a handful of times at carnivals, over my entire life. I've hardly ever climbed stairs as well. BUT, I'm reasonably confident I'd be able to walk up stairs and shoot ball park in the right direction if I was doing so in real life. GoldenEye just made walking up stairs and shooting a gun seem the most complicated thing in the world. No time for it! If it comes out on PS3 I might have to check it out. But loving the fact that I can get games dirt cheap now, since I've only recently bought the console.
re PS3 Move...I didn't get it. Maybe if there is a library of good games to play with it, I might. Just doesn't seem a good buy at the moment...like 3D TV...nothing much to really watch in 3D at the moment...and have heard that watching too much 3D can mess your eyesight! Lose lose scenario!
re PS4...I'm inclined to think that the next big thing may in fact be online gaming...so, no console...just new games released for online...maybe even PCs might be unnecessary? As in some sort of set top box serving. Dunno.
re Divinyls..."Back to the wall" is a radio song over here. I think the songs that I linked to are classics, so we have different tastes, obviously. They had a lesser hit in the US with "Ain't gonna eat out my heart anymore" or whatever it was called. I like the guitar lick in it, but the rest of the song does nothing for me...American experession? It's a horrible image and I don't even think it makes that much sense! Just You Tubed the song...there's a hit for it under the Buffy movie soundtrack. Here's another radio song by the band...it's not bad but not a huge favourite of mine...again, interesting subject matter for a song:
Pleasure and pain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aYzQb6cc5E
If you remember "Boys in town" there's a bit where Chrissie makes that primary school noise with her fingers on her mouth...I was trying to find a You Tube of a former Australian Prime Minister doing just that...no luck. Paul Keating could be lethal in parliament question time...maybe that wasn't his greatest hit, but the Divinyls parallel came to me. Whacko...found it...it's number 3 on this You Tube...you can maybe just jump to it at the 50 second mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMq0tzfmc3Y
Number one in the video is funny too (actually, watch just that segment in a different clip below)...picture quality not the best...that was the Prime Mininster who came in after the one at #3 on that You Tube. Which reminds me...here's the Prime Minister before guy at #3 (from the same party) playing cricket...sorry, couldn't find it online...he got hit in the glasses batting anyway...they smashed...no real damage done though):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o8by05rtMY
re "Love is a battlefield". Not a fan of that song, but Benatar seems to be regarded as a major figure in music...as some sort of trailblazer for women? I love "We belong" though. Other than that she doesn't really grab me that much. Think I heard that one of her hits was a cover of an Australian song...not sure the connection...a Cockroaches' song? Wiggles connection? Dunno. Hmm...maybe the song was "Hit me with your best shot"?
Anyway, it just seems my impression that in the past the Australian songs which have charted in the US weren't very good...not a patch on the act's earlier songs which were hits in Australia. Australia has had good taste in music I think. E.g. We gave some US artists their first hits anywhere in the world...Johnny Cougar (Mellencamp), Blondie etc. The bland Blondie song "X offender" was meant to be released here, but someone played the B side, "In the flesh", and it was a hit here. There first ever. In my view that song is a classic. I'm assuming that "X offender" was the single in the US and did sort of okay or something...not a bit hit.
re Muttiah...he's controversial. He bowls with a bent arm. An umpire in Australia called him for "chucking" when he played here. That's akin to a moral stigma...bowlers have had their careers ruined for this charge. Australian crowds have also taunted him for being a 'chucker'. Not exactly sure what the rule is...you must bowl with a straight arm, or you must not straighten your arm in the act of delivering the ball. The Sri Lankans have suggested that Muttiah got into trouble here because we are racist. Have heard cricketers from India and Pakistan say that Muttiah's bowling action is atrocious. The laws of the game have actually been changed to accomodate his action. It seems that no one could bowl how the laws demanded beforehand. Muttiah's situation is apparently that he has an anatomical reason why he bowls with a bent arm. My concern is that his extraordinary ability to turn the ball is as a result of his bent arm action. He and Shane Warne are miles ahead in batsmen that they've got out...Muttiah now holds the record. Maybe it's a pity he was 'accomodated'...but in a sense it would be a tragedy to deny his extraordinary career...which he wouldn't have had had he been called for chucking consistently when he started. Anyway, just thought you might have noticed his bent arm when he bowled.
By the way, one of Muttiah's deliveries - the "doosrah" I think it is called...or something like that, IS considered illegal. It's a certain kind of delivery where he wants to make it do something in particular. Not really sure the degree of difference between something deemed illegal and...the way he normally bowls!
re measuring speed of bowlers...I just thought that maybe using that striped backdrop made measuring more precise. The Mythbusters use that technique in their show. Nowadays they measure in match conditions...which is how I think they measured the bowlers in that 2nd showdown in the 1970s I linked to...the match conditions method showed much slower speeds than the black and white backdrop system they used earlier. Also, here in Australia, it's charged that governments are revenue raising with speed cameras...and there's suggestions that these aren't accurate. Think that's what they use in cricket games now to measure speed.
re clip of guy saying he wanted to hurt the batsman...I think that guy...if it's 'Thommo' you're talking about, has also said words to the effect that he wants 'to spill some claret on the pitch'...meaning he wants to draw blood. Thommo was the guy in the clip with the pigs...can't remember if he was hunting them or not. Think he's the guy that Roy (from those Roy & H.G. sports comedy clips I've posted) got his shtick about hunting pigs or whatever...Roy always banged on about that in their shows. Anyway, in those days, batters didn't wear helmets, or were just coming in...you got the ridiculous looking motorcycle helmets being used. With Lillian Thomson coming in to bowl, I'd just be shytting bricks if I didn't have a helmet...and a mattress tied around me!
By the by...in the 1930s there was a famous, law changing series between Australia and England. Australia had Donald Bradman batting. He's arguable the greatest sportsman of all kind...his batting average is literally double what the all time great batters get. It's for that reason that the poms devised what they called "Leg side theory" bowling. Australians came to call it "Bodyline". This was in the days before helmets, mind you. The English pace bowlers would bowl at the batsmen's body. This made it hard to score runs off them, plus if they missed with their bat, they could get hit in the body or the head*. This tactic was eventually outlawed by the ICC...despite England defending it for a while. Bradman finished the series with a batting average about half of his career average...so, by anyone else's standards he was great, but by his own he was half as effective. That was the point of Bodyline. But the poms used it on other batsmen too...and guys who aren't in the team for their batting (it's from an English perspective, and you don't really get a lot of the shots of the Australians who had been hit the body or head by the bowling. For some reason another show comes on to the clip some 4:30 minutes in...Australians bowling in an unsporting way! The West Indian team, when they were the greatest team in the world (!), also had a formidable pace attack):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rybPvBa3Oc
* Watching the You Tube above I was initially thrown by the narrators point that two balls which injured the Australians batting was not Bodyline...which reminds me, I think, that Bodyline was ALSO a fieldsetting...so, hostile bowling PLUS a a field set to prevent runs being scored from this bowling...that's the part which was later deemed illegal, I think.
Hmm...the villain of the Bodyline series, Harold Larwood, became an Australian too. Should of mentioned that earlier! A wag in the crowd for the Bodyline series told the English captain "Leave are bloody flies alone, Jardine!" when he swatted them away...he must have felt like the poms were attacking everything on that tour! Oh gosh, back to that Bodyline clip...freakin' extraordinary fact about Britain's reaction to Australia complaining about Bodyline...sheesh!
The 'wrong' clip at the end features Dennis Lillee..he's the one who did the run from the boundary fence. You're right...it was just for show...only did it for one ball...but the crowd loved it. Like I say, 80,000 chanting "Lil-lee, Lil-lee, Lil-lee" as he comes into bowl was great...you always expected him to do something great. That 'wrong' clip, if I'm not mistaken, is where Lillee gets out the great West Indian batsman Viv Richards via first bowling 'bouncers' at him (head high, intimidating bowling) which put Viv off his game, then got him out with a non-bouncer...sort of like a sucker punch. Just by the by, there's an episode of The Cosby Show where the grandad and his mates are talking about great West Indian players of their era. I think Cosby gets upset when one of them calls baseball "rounders"...think that that's the British school game which looks like baseball...or is identical to it. Not sure of the history there. Years ago I heard how West Indians were getting into basketball. In a way that is sad...they used to be a great team...perhaps the best ever. They suck now. Total shambles. But basketball does pay a whole lot better than cricket can.
re US and Fahrenheit...have I said "America should join the 20th century" yet?
Your temps are staggering...what part of the US are you in? I whinge about the cold here...and that's around 10 degrees Celsius at worst! The heat here can be a real bytche too...the best part of the week over 40 degrees C some years. A good year is when those temperatures plummet after dusk. Some years you just breathe in very warm air all night long. No real summer to speak of this year. Up north there were multiple cyclones and floods. One cyclone was bigger than Hurricane Katrina by some measures...don't think it was as wide, but it's eye was twice as big. Just good it didn't hit the capital.
re network tv...don't know how many digital stations you are getting on free to air tv over there, but over here, I've got information overload...the five networks have at least two stations, and a community station has finally gone digital. Only knew Vampire Diaries was back on last year due to bus posters. It's so easy to miss a premiere or return of a show now, I think. TiVo has a good feature, but I don't have that...plus the partner of TiVo over here, a network, has crippled the system so that viewers can jump 30 second increments during the ads. My new PVR doesn't either, but I just forward at x64 and it's not an issue for me.
re timeslot shifts...think they're just panic switching sometimes...they start it in an ambitious time slot and when it doesn't set the world on fire they move it elsewhere. House has been moved around...a successful show, but maybe not as much as it used to be. I might stop watching Supernatural now as the network which shows that is putting House against it now...Supernatural just isn't that good to watch out of love. Last ep had the boys in Heaven...interesting take on Heaven. Didn't totally suck, like I thought it might. Might ditch it now anyway. Did read that the network is cannibalising their own main channel's audience with their digital channel...which could happen with me too.
re V - no, it's a remake of a 1980s show, I believe. Might still check out the original series one of these days...remember I started watching it but I think at some point I stopped...don't remember why. The star of the original, Jane Badler, plays the alien mum in the new series. She's Australian now, I believe. Back to V...so, doubt if communism etc was a big issue in the 80s as it was in the 50s. The Battlestar Galactica reboot was THE post 11/09/2001 series, I think...hard to believe it would have been the show it was without those events having happened.
re Nurse Jackie...yeah, I do think I heard something about it being axed in the US...we must have stopped the original episodes before all the eps went to air...it's running now...up to the ep that got it got axed, I presume.
re The Office...I've jumped off the wagon. Started watching an ep and just thought "Nuh". Later I found out the network wouldn't be showing eps back to back...that MIGHT have been a change that kept me on it longer...if I'd known. At least the original series had short seasons and ended after a few years. The US version is just going to go on forever, I assume...and I'd guess that their seasons are longer too. Short and sweet is best sometimes.
re Desperate Housewives...hasn't it always been a soap? I'm finding it funnier than it's ever been, perhaps, now. It's hard to stop watching when it's being good at being entertaining!
re Gene Simmons - I used to be a fan of KISS, so there was that novelty value to get me in. It just wore off and it became more obvious that it was fake reality tv. But yeah, Nick Simmons has his fans! He reminds me of my cousin when he was around Nick's age..so, seems likeable enough...good luck snagging him!
re Weeds/Mad Men...it seems to me that Weeds has another season, at least, to go. It's been consistently good...still remember a joke they told first series (hope I haven't said this already!)...two characters in the lounge ask the housecleaner what the area between the cock and anus is called...she says "The coffee table"! Love it! Mad Men improved second series, so I'm looking forward to the 3rd series...feel gypped...into the show, but very short runs and network can't show newer eps, as cable has dibs on them...be a while before I see that 3rd series, I think. The main wife in that show creeped me out...really awkward viewing.
Wondering if I should stick with The Simpsons too. Got a laugh last new ep (new here at least). Haven't seen South Park for ages...not sure, maybe a commercial network has the rights now or something...they're showing old eps at least...I can drop off a show if it goes to a major commercial network...used to watch Top Gear on the same network that South Park was on, but not on the network which now shows South Park reruns on their digital station...they bloat the running time of it too...to fit in waay more ads.
Also ditched "American dad" a while back...it's just not that funny...same goes for "Futurama"...I ditched that years ago.
re 'news'...even worse, I remember commercial networks here running stories on US franchises opening in Australia...for the love of God! Krispy Kreme opening in Australia is apparently important news on Channel 10! Seriously, WTF? That was years ago though. Shows like Media Watch also highlight how press releases by, say, pharmaceuticals get turned into 'news' items by the networks...just shytte journalism standards...'journalists' paraphrasing or plagiarising press releases!
re CNNNN...yeah...they just bundle every kind of obsession of Today Tonight and A Current Affair into one story encompassing all of these dog whistle issues...illegal immigrants, dole bludgers, shonky builders, obesity etc. Re their interviews with Americans...the first one I find genuinely funny...took a liking to that blonde who had to be prompted that the US was a country starting with "U". But the segment got old and just try hard. It's not uncommon in the media here to highlight how Americans don't know anything about Australia...I don't find that credible anyway...like they're supposed to know about a country which isn't a powerful nation...let alone a superpower? Hmm.
re Leno's street talk...we had a show here called "Hey hey it's Saturday" (in it's last resurrection it was on Wednesday!)...they had a media watch kind of segment...funny newspaper ads or whatnot. Letterman has something like that too...not sure who was first...HHIS has been around for decades.
re Apocalyptica...you're talking about their technique, but not the music...you don't like it? They faithfully do the music I think...which is to say that Metallica do have an ear for a pretty melody.
I picked the melodic Metallica songs that I like...here's a thrashier one:
Fight fire with fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nJU8bOMo98
Here's a Slayer cover...never really got into Slayer's "Reign in blood", which I checked out due to it being described as the greatest heavy metal album ever...
Slayer - Angel of death
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUE-wMQFX3Y
Good song to relax too with a nice hot cup of tea, ay?
re Compton cricket...yeah, some homeless people, druggies. They might be disabused of their notions that it is a genteel game if they see that Bodyline clip!
re women's sport...here's something that made me laugh...marathon swimming used to be the domain of men. Some years ago women got BETTER than the men! I think Australian women have been at the forefront of this changing of the guard. What made me laugh? Some guy, I don't know who...French perhaps?...said something along the lines that he was quitting because the women were beating him! I think he MIGHT have been world class long distance swimmer.
Not sure how much money women swimmers can make defeating men in marathon swimming...pretty boring to watch, I'd assume...unless you were smoking weed, perhaps.
P.S. re Family Guy...can't remember how long the show had been going when I started watching it...found the early 'Stewie as evil genius' thread a bit tiresome.
P.P.S. re online prices...just read something about iTunes in Australia justified the higher prices Australians were paying for it by saying that the Australian dollar was weaker than the US dollar. Righto. But for a while now the Australian dollar has been worth more than the US dollar...level pegging now for a months. The article says that Americans pay $1.29 for a particular music track, but over here it's $2.18. 69% more. I don't use iTunes but still...
...another edit in...
I think we've discussed subtitles before and networks stuffing around their programme schedules...found a couple of relevant follow ups here:
Subtitles (be interested if you have a similar issue in the U.S)...Media Watch here (a weekly 15 minutes tv show with various stories) ran a segment on this last week, 07/03/2011...you may also be interested in the "spider bait" story...how fake news is recycled every few years to get more web clicks (the subtitle story is called "Read it and weep"):
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/byyear/2011.htm
>>> check out the story in Media Watch which covers fake news this week...14/03/2011 "A well tried gimmick". It concerns women's body shapes...from memory the bra section amused me for some reason...which I can't remember.
Also saw a story in The Age newspaper's tv guide section on parental locks on STB and EPGs. They mentioned "bridging" the network practice of running programmes over time "to discourage viewers from switching channels at the end of a show by ensuring they've missed the start of other channels' programmes"...I tried finding a link to it but got couldn't find it...however, this link looks relevant and interesting:
http://www.cybercollege.com/frtv/frtv028.htm
That networks which is now scheduling two shows of theirs at the same time (Supernatural and House) is bridging House on their main channel, which means I miss the start of Dexter...good thing I have a PVR though!
That's all for now...hopefully...
> Saw something in the tv show "Good game" over here about Microsoft recruiting for their new Xbox...not sure if you saw that rather than PS4...but if a new Xbox is being worked on, I'm sure that Sony are either leading with their new console or will follow suit soon.
> Saw the first ep of a new comedy show about chefs, called "Whites". Stars the guy from Jonathan Creek mysteries and the chick from "The IT Crowd", which I've posted up numerous clips from here. Liked it. Will watch. Maybe keep an eye out for it in the US.
Word count: 4306
Re word count- for some reason I remember one that was around 3700 being the longest prior to your 4000+ one. Don’t want to go through all of them, but that just sticks for some reason.
Re A2A- I’m not sure when Ashes screened in the US. I know series 2 was on right around the time that series 3 was airing in the UK, but as I wasn’t as fond of A2A, I didn’t keep up with the board very much. Mainly used it to see when series 3 was starting. And while series 3 was airing in the UK, and for quite some time after that, all of series 3 was on youtube. I’m guessing that when series 3 started airing in other countries is when the BBC started claiming copyright.
Don’t have much to say on the stars. Don’t remember if there was anything special other than the main characters seeing them at certain points. As for Gene’s role, I think I remember seeing that he was just a soul that somehow became strong enough to build his own world and draw other souls to him. I do remember in an ep of LOM (think it was 1x2) where Gene was wearing a medal that was supposed to be a St. Michaels. Read in an article it was supposed to be some parallel to Sam’s St. Christopher, but it wasn’t carried through for some reason.
Keats, I think was supposed to be a minion of the devil. There was an interview with the actor who played Keats that came out I think about half way through series 3 where the actor recounted a conversation between himself and either the director or producers where he wanted to know if during that final exchange between Gene and Keats if there would be any CGI work or if it would be solely his performance. The other person told him that the show wasn’t Doctor Who :). Think that really helps push the idea that Keats was supposed to be some kind of demon-type thing.
I don’t think there were supposed to be any final answers about what the afterlife would be like once the souls left Gene’s world, but do remember a sense and little clues that Chris, Ray, and Shaz getting in the elevator would have been a bad thing. It’s like with the Railway Arms, you just heard people conversing and sounding like they were having a good time.
It never was made clear how Gene showed others to move on. Did get a sense that it was basically his choice to stay on in his own world instead of moving on. Like he hadn’t felt he had accomplished what he needed to move on. With Alex, it was just getting her to accept that she was dead, and figure out that she was in a type of limbo to move on. With the others it wasn’t really clear. I think it would have helped knowing more of Sam’s final story to help understand the dynamics of what allowed people to move on. I guess with Chris, Ray, and Shaz, once the illusion was shattered of still living, they couldn’t stay there, and Gene didn’t want them to go down the elevator.
Never thought it was clear with Gene, if he knew all along if he was dead and controlling the realm/reality/whatever, or if there were times he truly forgot. (Reading a very detailed synopsis of 3x8 right now, and it says in a conversation between Gene and Alex at the house where Gene died, Gene says he forgot he was dead. Don’t fully remember how the scene was acted, but I do remember questioning the truth to some of Gene’s statements.) Maybe could say that was why he drank so much – to help forget what happened to his real self in life. The best I could come up with that when presented with the evidence of how he died, Gene had to remember where he truly was, and if the person presenting him with the evidence wanted to move on, they could.
With Sam, my understanding of it was that he figured out that he was in fact dead, who Gene truly was, and that it was time to move on. So that there was closure, to a degree, for the others, he had Gene help him fake his ‘death’ there, and afterwards Gene took him to the pub for the final time. In a series 1 ep of Ashes (one where Chaz Kael (sp?) is the bad guy, Alex is continually cold, and winds up locked in a restaurant freezer for awhile before Gene blasts in to save her) she makes a comment about it taking seven minutes for the brain to shut down completely when a person is dying. Sam had seven years in Gene’s world, one for each minute it took his brain to die after jumping off the building. Now it may have worked that way for Sam, because it was his choice to go, so when his brain shut off in 2006, and had some how found peace, it triggered something to help him move on. Ray wasn’t at peace when he died because he thought himself inferior about something; Shaz got killed on duty and felt she hadn’t accomplished anything; (and this sounds awful, but I couldn’t remember Chris’s death tape and had to go looking for his death) Chris wasn’t set to go, and died blindly following orders. Since none of them were at peace, their time in Gene!world was much longer, and had to have a kick to get moving. Alex only had a couple years because of her ties to Sam, and knowing something was wonky as soon as she got to Gene!world.
The Railway Arms was the local pub in Manchester, and Nelson was the bartender. To have it magically appear in London would have been a shock to those not expecting it. Ah, another point! I think Nelson is more of Keats’ counterpoint than Gene. Keats watched over the elevator to hell (or wherever) and Nelson was the door keep to wherever the pub leads to. Think Gene was just a soul stuck somewhere in between.
Think Gene was so rude to Chris because part of being in Gene’s world was finding some kind of peace and facing issues that were present at their death. Since Chris had blindly followed orders and died from it, he had to grow a pair in Gene!world to help prep him to move on. Perhaps Gene had a sense that he would be losing his four officers when Keats showed up, and started remembering what that reality was (assuming he forgets for periods of time), and he acted that way towards the others so they’d be able to move on peacefully.
Having had about a year to process, and now reading thoughts from people just getting done watching the show, and having to read some synopsis to remember certain points, makes the show more of a whole somehow. A tidier picture than after just finishing it, to a degree. Start looking at every little detail and anything that doesn’t deal directly with the main characters and find myself back in the land of ‘What the hell is going on?’
Re obesity- yes, one small tootsie roll a month from the teacher is what has done it. Though in all honesty I don’t remember that many obese kids at school with me. Some may have had a few extra pounds, but it is nothing like what they’re talking about now. Oddly, I think I’ve heard the reverse is true; that bigger kids don’t do as well in school, and then it’s tied back to bullying, being ashamed of their size, act out, etc. With the amount the school provides for meals, I don’t know how anyone could get fat eating it. For a middle school lunch, it is usually a small milk, a scoop of veggies, and then a main item, such as one corn dog, a tiny salad, maybe 4 chicken nuggets. The type of meals that don’t fill anyone up, and five minutes later they’re looking for something else to eat. Give the kids a decent meal and it would go a much longer way.
Re Fawlty Towers- I’ve seen a few eps. Somehow my grandmother has some of the eps on dvd. Not my favorite scene from that show.
Re getting one over- some people just don’t remember to change money, or they don’t change enough. Think a lot of people travel with their credit cards, and some times can be kind of shocked when a certain card isn’t accepted. Can’t imagine why they thought they would be able to change money in a pie store, though. Or was it in a high tourist area? When I was in Canada there were a couple of places with high tourist traffic that were more willing to change money.
Re Macs- Haven’t had any operating probs, but do remember now that I think about it, the battery on this model laptop overheats and warps to the point it needs to be replaced. Thankfully mine was still under warranty for that, but in new models it has been fixed.
Re Bill Gates- it always seems like guys/companies that make it big off someone else’s idea are the worst when it comes to protecting their products. They know it is how they out did their competitors, and are afraid that someone will out do them next. They have forgotten that competition is good for the market.
Re Latin Americans in US- The US census counts all Hispanics and Latinos as one group, and defined as “[…] a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.”
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf
The way this reads even someone from Spain would count as Hispanic or Latino origin, though from my understanding the Spaniards don’t like to be grouped in with Latin America. So grouping everyone from Mexico and south together in one group plus Spain, Hispanic and Latinos supposedly have the largest minority, according to the census, which there are constant arguments on how believable the results actually are. There is also the issue with the above definition that Brazil is obviously counted in this group, and their Portuguese, not Spanish, plus the Dutch and French areas, as well as the half dozen or more native languages that have managed to hold on and survive, particularly in the Andes region.
Re immersion/cram- sounds like a new word is needed. Obviously can’t speak only something like math, though I knew a few math geeks in high school that would probably disagree, so immersion doesn’t work, and I’ve always considered cramming as an intense study that is more refresher and maybe an extra fact or two. If you’re studying one subject over breaks can think of two words that have been applied in the past: nerd- if trying to get ahead or if it is just for fun, or remedial- if having to take the subject in order to get to the next level the following school year.
Re taxes- the way around tax over here, but still support stores and not purely online retailers is if you can find a place that has a store front in a state you don’t live in. For instance, there is a place called Anime Castle that I typically get my anime cds from. They have a store in New York state, but because I don’t live in New York and I’m not sending it to New York, I don’t have to pay the tax.
Re Amazon- if you can find a disc in store, the week it comes out, it stands a chance of being cheaper. Of course it must be main stream, and even then usually only one cd out of the ones coming out that week is a decent price. The other sellers on Amazon usually are more expensive than Amazon on stuff like dvds and cds. Have found some outstanding deals on books from the marketplace people, though. It comes down to how much time do you want to spend surfing websites, and then hoping site X is reliable and trustworthy.
Re 3D- I’ve never understood the draw of 3D. Nintendo is coming out with a Nintendo 3DS; think it comes out over here on the sometime this weekend. They say you don’t need glasses to see the 3D, that it is some how built-in to the handheld.
Re online gaming- not a fan. The problem is the people doing the developing are always pushing at the limits of what the average consumer has, and only the people with the latest tech have the game operate at its best. But some kind of machine would be needed to access online, and something would be needed to control the game, so either a computer or console would still be needed. Then there is always the futuristic scenario where some chip is inserted in the brain and you can control it with your thoughts.
Re Divinyls- “Pleasure and pain” isn’t bad. Won’t be making a favourite list, but not bad.
Re bowling PM- that was awful. The second one could be argued as decent for someone who doesn’t play, but the two throws directly into the dirt … would have been better not doing it. At least he was able to bat!
Re Muttiah- didn’t notice his arm, too busy trying to see the ball. I know over here, most softball players pitch with a mostly straight arm, pretty sure the rules says they have to pitch underhand, and so you get these wonky straight arm, pinwheel looking wind-ups.
Re measuring speed- people over here have been complaining since radar guns started being used to measure speed and give tickets. They’ve just started using red light cameras in more areas, and people complain about that too. Pretty much any time people have to part with money to groups like the cops they get testy.
Re bodyline clip- think I got the general idea, though the old footage makes it difficult to see, and the clip wasn’t put together very well – changes too abrupt.
Re US century- hopefully we’d get with the 21st century, or we’d still be behind ;)
Re temps- in the middle of the country, but we don’t have the worst of it. The true plain states have it the worst. In the winter they’ve been getting temps sustained over a couple weeks that are like 15 degrees below 0 F, and then get winds howling through that take it down to about -50 F. For most of the area, they have summers that are cooler than where I’m at, but there are some desert regions that get warmer. It isn’t the actual temperatures I find that hard to deal with, but the wind chills and heat indexes. Add a little wind to an already cold winter day, and it cuts right through you and nothing helps. In the summer, the humidity in the already steaming air makes the outdoors almost unbearable, and the temps don’t move a lot a night. There have been times when we’re celebrating 90 F as a low, but heat index is still 95 F. Those are usually August days.
Re digital tv- officially, all free tv is digital now. Congress implemented something a couple years ago where all remaining analog signals were switched to digital on free to air. Personally think there was some kind of deal between Congress and tv people. If you had an old tv, you had 3 options: buy a new tv, get cable/satellite, or buy a box that several different companies put out (all costing exactly the same thing) to attach to an analog set that converts the digital signal for the old set. Of course instead of making the stupid boxes affordable in the first place, the makers set the price for around $80, then the government hands out subsidized coupons to everyone in America that drops the price to $40, with the tax payers picking up the tab. We only have 1 tv that will pick up the digital signals, and it is difficult to channel surf on, so it was by accident we even discovered the free digital channels – think there were 4; mom say it, I didn’t pay much attention. My grandma had only that for a bit, but bought a bundle when she finally got the internet and got cable.
Re V- from the pics I had seen it surprises me it was an 80s show. Found some online stuff where it is more obvious it is from the 80s. Odd that the crappy pics I remembered were on a dvd box in stores. Still hated the Soviets, though. Haven’t seen original or remake, so can’t say much more than that.
Re Desperate Housewives- when I was watching it that first season, it didn’t strike me as being real soapy, more of a drama with a lot of comedic elements. When the second season started is when I think it started picking up more classic soap vibe. Think by mid season 2 I had given up. Haven’t really bothered to watch a full ep since; too many changes and I don’t care enough to figure out all the necessary bits to catch up. And getting more soap vibe than ever from what I have seen.
Re Nick Simmons- cute to look at, but wouldn’t be caught dead with a younger guy. Not to mention all ‘reality’ tv families get so messed up it isn’t even worth knowing them.
American Dad have never liked, and can’t understand the draw. Futurama I will see an old ep now and again. I know it had come back on Comedy Central, but I don’t know if they are still doing new eps. One of those shows I look at and wonder how it took off, and find myself mind numbed into watching the whole ep. It being on late enough where nothing else is on doesn’t hurt either.
Re dumb Americans- it is not uncommon to find Americans that don’t even know anything about America. Now I hate politics, and barely watch the news, but even I could tell you the branches of government, who the president and vice president are, and at least know who I’m either voting for or against; a lot of Americans can be polled and won’t know basic American history (one of the Jaywalking guys actually thought that fighter jets were first used in the American Revolution), can usually find several who won’t know who politicians are that have even been in the news every day for more than a week, or who is on a ballot.
Re Apocalyptica- I meant the music as well as the technique. In this case, they’re using techniques to make incredible music. Then there are people like Yo-Yo Ma who does a lot of classical, is hailed as a great cellist, but he does a lot of fancy techniques that are not necessary to play the piece. It’s more showy than anything else, whereas Apocalyptica, at least from what I saw of their technique, they rely on the music to impress people, and not overdone, fancy technique. Do have to give them props on being able to head bang while playing. Wonder if any of them have hit their heads against the cellos when they first started dong it.
Fight Fire with Fire is okay. Might be because it was a live show, and the annoying announcer or whatever he was supposed to be that cut in a few times to I think say who they were. Liked the one you posted before more, Fade to Black. Also liked this one, especially starting around the 3 minute mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Loum7xWzQ&feature=related
Not a huge fan of the Angel of Death cover. Feels like it never really comes together; just a lot of scratchy noise. Think I started to listen to it when I was clicking around on their stuff with your previous post, and the bumble bee sounding opening put me off.
Re cricket as gentleman’s sport- think he also meant how one acted off the pitch, or are cricket players known for bad behaviour off the field? Many of our sport stars over here are probably more well known for their behaviour off the field, and not necessarily their actual sporting talent. Doesn’t help that despite coaches supposedly preaching good behaviour off the field, whenever a star player does something wrong, the consequences are fairly minor since the coach still wants that star player. If it is a team member that isn’t valued as much, their might be harsher consequences, but usually not as harsh as it should be.
Re women’s marathon swimming- swimming in general is boring to watch; right up there with say tennis and probably basketball. Even worse if you’re at an indoor meet. Had to go to an indoor meet to take pics one year and thought I was going to pass out from the chlorine and other chemical smells. Don’t remember ever being around a pool that was quite that bad before, or since. As for weed making it more interesting, I would think that the weed would use the water movement to entertain the brain more than the people going back and forth.
Re iTunes- think I’ve only used it once, and it was the only place I could find the song. If I have any song downloads I want to do, I’ll typically go to Amazon. They usually price at $.99 or $.89 per song, and a lot of albums are $9.99. Also, they have a selection of free music that rotates. Most of it is samplers, but get some interesting stuff that normally wouldn’t buy.
Re closed caption- don’t watch with it on very often, though have found it very difficult to turn on on any of our tvs. When you got into bars or other eating establishments that have tvs going, they usually have captions on and the sound off so you can follow the story if you want, but the extra noise isn’t there. I never noticed a real problem with those, but don’t pay that much attention to know how good of a job is done overall.
Re spider bait- This doesn’t surprise me in the least. On Yahoo’s home page there is usually anywhere from 25-50+ small stories, most that are just interesting, not really important things, and I’ve seen a few things in that that fall under this category. From my understanding, more clicks means easier to get advertisers or the capability to ask for more money. If a story sounds interesting in some form, they’ll throw it out there, even with a headline that may not represent the story that faithfully.
Re A Well Tried Gimmick- This has been going on forever. Women feel insecure about their body types so instead of using what everyone knows and has used for as long as anyone can remember, we are going to come up with new terms that make it sound sexier and so more women will want our product. Sadly, it works, and a lot of people don’t pick up on it is just new marketing.
This reminded me of a story I saw on the news a few days ago. A clothing company over here, Aerocrombie & Fitch, which caters mainly to the preppy, kind of snobbish type, has come out with a push up bikini for young girls, like about 8 years old. People made a big stink about it because in the catalogue it was named something like push up bikini, and after the stink they changed the name to something like triangle bikini, but it is still the exact same suit. Who in their right mind would even think making this thing would be a good idea? They aren’t old enough to have developed anything naturally, they don’t need clothes that give them fake ones.
Re tv programming- I’ve actually been looking very briefly at some of this stuff, and reading some of the explanations of facebook and twitter that one of the Syfy channel’s relations guys has put out. With it being a supposed sci-fi station, they get a lot of complaints from the die hard sci-fi people when shows start changing. I’ve paid attention to it because one of their shows I started watch about two years ago has change nights twice now, and a show that started about the same time on a sibling channel has also seen a few night shifts. Always afraid of that, but now have a slightly better understanding of what they claim they are trying to do. Don’t understand how some of these show pair ups come about though when they are trying to get audience flow and the two shows have little to nothing in common.
Re new xbox- wasn’t about a new xbox. While the companies are constantly working on the next system, they only release info when it starts looking like it will be a reality.
Re Whites- currently don’t have any channels that would air it as is. If it looks like it is a hit that would take off in the US, someone would buy the rights to remake it. PBS gets some every now and again, but trying to figure out their schedule is ridiculous. Plus, when they start doing fundraising, programming becomes completely random. The only other station (other than BBCA) that occasionally plays international shows is Syfy. They are airing ‘The Adventures of Merlin’ as it was filmed, but since it is originally cut for a station with no commercials, some of the show gets chopped. Personally think the only reason they air the original is because the expense would be too great. They did get the rights to Being Human, but instead of airing the original, they remade it and set it in Boston. Have seen on their website that they have some rights to Doctor Who, but I’ve personally never seen an ep aired on their channel. Oh, have also seen Primeval on their channel, but only in marathons.
Word count: 4399
I might make it homework to check out that older post which may well have breached the 4000 word 'landmark'. As for A2A, I won't rehash my thoughts here...this is the thread where I go into it:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1008108/board/thread/179176731?d=179176731 #179176731
But I will say that it seemed to draw heavily on Lost, whilst lacking that show's mythos, and it was a bit of a cut and paste job...bibs and bobs from religion or whatnot. How did you feel about the ending? Better/worse/same as for ending of US LOM?
re St. Michael...just Wikid him...apparently he's an archangel. You also mentioned St. Christopher...could have sworn he was mentioned in an episode of the relgious affairs programme here in Australia, Compass...episode concerning the canonisation of Australia's first saint, Mary Mackillop. If memory serves, Christopher was a fictional saint...illustrating the dangers of having saints declared by popular sentiment. Could be wrong on the name though...didn't see a reference to this in a quick glance at the Wikipedia entry.
re Keats...watching that finale, I got the impression that he transformed into some kind of monster when Gene punched him...on reviewing that scene I saw that that was not the case...Keats just sort of contorted his face and made a hissing soud or something.
Anyway, it just seemed odd that Gene could have a choice in the afterlife...who made him sort of a mentor there? Like I say, has a cobbled together feel to it...not as fleshed out as in Lost, perhaps.
re Sam...not really sold on that 1 minute = 1 year in afterlife theory...Sam wouldn't have taken 7 minutes to fall off that skyscraper and I was always incredulous that he still be alive after he went 'splat'...his brains would be all over the ground...so, no seven minutes of life then, I wouldn't think!
re Railway Arms...so there is an ep where we actually see it where it's meant to be? Was that in the afterlife? So we got to see beyond Gene's domain in the afterlife?
re obesity, something on this on science magazine programme Catalyst the other day over here:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3185309.htm
Have heard how the US was worst with obese kids and thought that recently Australia had 'beaten' yous in that regard. Then again, I think I've heard that Australian children are less obese now...so, not sure what the current state of affairs is. Have heard that some women have obese foetuses! I.e. they require caesarian sections! That link above gives advice on how to avoid having that happen to women.
re meals...haven't we discussed America's ridiculous food portions here before? I mean the whole "Supersize me" phenomenon. Australia has generally not followed their franchise parents in that regard...I mean your fast food chains...though I have heard that KFC here have a new burger...no bun...but two chicken fillets as the 'bun'! Meant to have horrendous amount of fat. In the US you seem to get cowburgers (a cow with a bun on top and bottom), a barrel full of chips and a 44 gallon drum of cola as the "regular" sized meal at restaurants! But even here we get those stupid American style "If you eat this 1 kilogram steak you get it free". Just a humungous waste in my view.
re Fawlty Towers...do you have a favourite scene from the show? I like the ep with the Australian woman in it...I think that that's where Basil does his headless frog bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU3S14xVTnc
Searching for that clip I saw a photo which is actually for a scene which had me in painful hysterics when I saw it years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b67l_yxUc
There is also a short You Tube where John Cleese discusses that scene.
re attempting to changing Canadian money here...I was thinking that the person was trying to pass off fake Canadian money for real Australian money on the assumption that the staff wouldn't know that the money was fake...but I dunno...could have been just a silly request by them.
re Macs, did you hear that a well known anti-spyware company is giving away a free anti-piracy software download for Macs?
re taxes in America...isn't that a sort of competition to the bottom? I.e. companies 'shop' for the best regime and governments get less and less in tax and maybe even have to rely on gambling revenue...which mostly comes from poor people...not sure if that is the case, but it's with regards to you shopping for your anime cds in another state. Is your state going to go in a race to the bottom to keep you spending money in your state?
Australia recently had a case of the then Prime Minister wanting to implement a mining tax but the big mining companies spent many millions advertising against this. There is a watered down version of the tax now on the table. It would be a pity if Australians were dudded because of powerful mining companies who don't pay a fair and reasonable amount of tax.
re Amazon competition...I know what you mean about hoping other companies are reliable and trustworthy...have tried my luck with such places and no complaints so far...not sure if eBay is reliable and trustworthy but I hear it's the most popular. For some cds, Amazon stores or sellers seem to be trying their luck with what they can charge people for the item...have heard something about some sellers (in collectable titles) rigging prices...not on Amazon perhaps, but in general...from memory, making dummy bids to artifically inflate titles. I've paid high prices in the past for supposedly uncommon cds, and I sort of get the impression that the supply is artificially limited perhaps, keeping prices ridiculous.
re 3D - An episode of Good Game here mentioned that the effect of the Nintendo is one of depth...so, it's not like the images pop out at you, but you see into the screen. In the movies, I think that those red/blue glasses sucked...didn't really work for me. Much happier with those blue only specs. Hear that companies are working on glasses free tvs.
re Divinyls' "Pleasure and pain". It's a radio song over here and not a fave of mine either...I don't mind it but it's not a "must listen" Divinyls song for me (I've already posted up which ones are earlier). Just posted it because the lyrics are about domestic violence. They don't write conventional pop/rock songs. There biggest US hit was about masturbation. They've had hits here with Pleasure And Pain, and that song about wanting to move out of a town where the woman was treated like a sex object ("Boys in town"). Kudos to them for writing unconventional songs and still being popular though.
re our bowling PM...yeah, he's not much of a bowler by the looks of it...his predecessor, from the other side of politics tried his hand at batting...that's the clip I couldn't find...he was batting, with glasses - made of glass - and he took a swing at the ball, and the ball hit him in the specs, and broke. He's lucky he didn't get a shard of glass in his eye. Really surprised that it's not up on You Tube...maybe it would have been funnier and gotten posted if he was a conservative, like the bad bowling PM?
re baseball pitching...I would have thought that they just chucked the ball...which is what cricket bowlers aren't allowed to do. With Muttiah, the press here always seem to show an action photo of the man when he's got a goofy looking face exerting himself bowling...
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQv2Y657keFcNAAKYMIkMGnC8S6jgR 851N8TNWUyTXpA2YGN3D5
re radar guns and speeding tickets...that's the argument over here...like pokies revenue, governments are relying on speeding tickets to generate revenue...I think some Aussie companies may even have won contracts in the US to supply your speeding cameras. Governments deny this, of course, but I think I've heard of stories where the cameras are placed where they can get the most revenue, not save the most lives.
re Bodyline...the fielders were packed on the side where the batsman's body was facing and the bowler bowled at the body, at an awkward hight...head high, chest high etc...hard to score and they defended their body, they might loop a catch to the fielder...that combination is outlawed now...I think the uploader may have been a Brit...hence the "what's all the fuss about" tone of the commentators and the abrupt footage of an Australian bowling legend bowling successive head high balls at a West Indian batting legend. It's meant to imply that the Australians were bowling bodyline too...but there wasn't the field placement to go with it.
Not sure you'll appreciate this, but you do get some quirky field placements...done more really for joke value then anything else...I think Australia is the only nation to have done this...where all the moveable fielders move in to one position:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/Nine_slips.jpg
http://mynethome.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/pic00024oo.jpg
Can you do stuff like that in baseball? The thing about that field is that if the batter hits the ball past the bowler and it doesn't reach the boundary, the bowler has to run and chase it! The field won't strike him as being hilarious in that case!
Had to look up - 50 F...thought that that mightn't be too bad...pretty much what it is in Celsius...REALLY bad! In summer I whinge about the heat...as bad as anywhere, I think...temps in the 38C range...that's 100F. Last summer was bad for humidity at night...unusually sticky. In winter I whinge about the cold and rain...but for you, no doubt, my idea of cold would be beach going weather! (a long walk there, no doubt!)...my idea of cold would be around sub 15C...sub 59F. We've had crazy rains over here in recent times...places getting 100s of millimetres of rain...some places about the length of a ruler...that's around 30 cm...not sure if your rulers are the same size as ours. Yes, it is the end of the world...End Times for sure! Good time to take up carpentry? Build an ark?
re digital tv...forget the story here, but I did read an opinion piece...maybe from a chain owner, saying that the government should tender out the manufacture of STBs and hand them out free to the public...he argued that that was cheaper than what was actually being done...too long ago to recall if he spoke sense or not. We've got around 15 digital channels in total...including the old analogue networks. It seems crazy to me to have cable in that environment.
re Desperate Housewives...this current series is probably the funniest I've seen, I think and the most engaging. Not sure if it's like "Days of our lives" say, where you can miss years of it and watch an ep and feel like you haven't missed a thing. One comedy panel show here, years ago, showed a clip from "Days of our lives" where a woman was possessed by Satan. Nice to see them move away from the soapy elements!
re dumb Americans and voting...here in Australia voting is mandatory. I've seen a young woman on tv here say that she would be voting how her parents voted...so, we're much more advanced than yous.
re Apocalyptica...I want to get cds by them...in my view a good tune is a good tune regardless of the genre in which it is played...so, Apocalyptica haven't really brought anything to the tunes apart from the novel instruments...the tunes they play stand up as thrash metal...I just like their arrangement to want to get some stuff where they play it.
re not liking "Angel of death" cover...neither do I, to any great extent...I chose that as an example of speed metal that I'm not really into (maybe 'real' heavy metal fans would could it "thrash" metal)..."Fight fire with fire" is a kind of harsh thrash metal that I findy okay...so, when you say that you found "Angel of death": "Feels like it never really comes together; just a lot of scratchy noise. Think I started to listen to it when I was clicking around on their stuff with your previous post, and the bumble bee sounding opening put me off"...that pretty much sums up the original Slayer version! That's why I don't really like either version. If you want to check out the original version, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6_zsJ8KPP0
That was one of the songs off of the album which I found "sort of okay".
Listening to it now, it doesn't really sound as extreme speed as I was expecting...maybe there are faster tracks on the album. I didn't keep the album...got a refund or exchanged it. Kept their album of punk covers "Undisputed attitude"...didn't like the extreme speed of most tracks, but some of the slower tracks were cool...especially the following song for the ultra cool drum break down...but it is extreme speed before that cool change of tempo (sorry about the stupid video...fan boy's...maybe just shut your eyes to listen if it bugs you):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayxzhhn1Qns
The lyrics amuse me.
re cricket and gentlemen's sport...I'll get back to Bodyline first...just gobsmacked by the British government threatening to call in debts if Australia officially complained about Bodyline...oh, which reminds me, I finally watched a docu I PVRd..."Once in a lifetime". It was about the Cosmos, a US soccer team. As a child, I'd heard of them from some friends who were into soccer...so, they must have captured people's imagination...it sounds like that team was ahead of the curve...the team the Cosmos created is pretty much what the mega-rich teams of today create. ANYWAY, what's interesting is that arguably the world's greatest soccer player, Pele, was lured to Cosmos. The Brazilian government tried to prevent this on "national interest" grounds (!)...so, Henry Bloody Kissinger rings Brazil and...voila...Pele is free to play for the Cosmos. Oh, forgot, a Brazilian government official practically begged Pele to play for the Cosmos, for the sake of Brazil/US relations! What on Earth did Kissinger say (threaten) to get this turnaround? I think that Kissinger was still in the US government at this time.
Okay, cricket as a gentlemen's sport...right now we are in the wake of spot betting scandals by Pakistan...that's where people can bet on specific events in games. Pakistan did certain things in game to give great returns for punters...well, they thought that they did...a UK newspaper did a sting operation. Australia's captain of the time is still in denial...Pakistan snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against us, at incredible odds...our captain of the time likes to think that that is due to our good play! And when a major nation loses a world cup match to a non-entity nation that doesn't even play test cricket (the notional premier version of the game), you just have to wonder.
Other sports...our Aussie rules footballers have had bad press...peeing on women, rape allegations etc. One serial offender was sacked this year for not changing his ways...he was looking at playing NFL...the place where has been Aussie Rules footballers go to make more money in their sport than they ever have. On the flipside, there have been stories this year of footballers been assaulted...just morons taking cheap shots at them. And one teenage girl falsely claimed to getting pregnant to an AFL footballer...she was big news here now...she didn't like the way the club treated her, so it looks like she wanted payback...a high profile middle-aged, married player manager allegedly had an affair with her (not illegal...she wasn't underage)...he was one of her biggest critics...so she pretty much disgraced him...he can't represent players anymore.
re boring swimming...Australia has had the all time greats in the 1,500 metre freestyle...the greats swim it in under 15 minutes. You'd be surprised how barracking for a countryman can make the even exciting! Marathon swimming seems a different kettle of fish though...a woman covered in fat swimming for many hours...don't think a network has ever covered that sport. As for your local pool...chlorine would be the least of your worries, I think...you shouldn't swim if the water is sepia coloured!
re Amazon music...can you get that in lossless format? iTunes you can...that's music which is cd quality...many sites compress the files, so you miss out on musical information.
re Spider bait...yeah, in newspapers spider bait is usually buried inside, at least in the 'serious' papers...online they're front and centre...lowest common denominator news. Online I suppose that news of World War III would be buried under some stories about Justin Bieber's beauty secrets.
re marketing and women's body types...the clip showed an ad used in the UK by the same company, but with different marketing terms. At least with terms like "apple" and "pear" you have clue to the shape of the woman...but with "Rembrandt", it sounds like you need a degree in art history to know what clothes to buy!
re push up bras for young girls...yeah, this kind of stuff has been making news over here for a year or more...the sexualisation of little girls...someone complained about a major department store doing that here...not sure whether they did that in court in not...but it made the news here.
re tv programming...I PVR Family Guy and I saw a repeat...apparently the new ep was at a later time...think the US version screened at a later time due to its content. Had to watch it online. I complained to the network...on the lines that the show was already presumably in an adult time slot, hence no need to screen it later. The guy on the line said "good luck" re trying to find the episode online. Found it easily...a BBC3 sourced ep...so, no annoying ads! Cool!
re Whites...apparently it was axed or not renewed...whatever. Had a short run, which is good...after the final ep, maybe I'm not sad to see it go...I felt for one of the characters in the show...he was going to Australia to be a chef. Final ep he's still there...his wife apparently didn't want their kids to grow up with an Australian accent (!). Was hoping he'd move coz I liked him. It's not really the kind of show where I can show you You Tubes...it's a true situation comedy in that sense...it makes me laugh, but it's more character based...BUT, the second last episode DID have 'moments' which I feel are post-worthy...the guy is the one who was meant to go to Australia...the woman is a waitress...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN4V_tgXuNY
Did want to show you another bit from the scene...where the woman is saying "vegetable?"...found that funny, but I can't see it on You Tube.
You mentioned Doctor Who...to me, that show is like Supernatural...not that good, but sometimes the story thread makes you watch it despite reservations...saw a promo for the new series...ongoing story elaboration may suck me in. Saw some EPG info for Supernatural which intrigued but didn't bite...I had given up on the show by that point...sort of interested in what happened.
Since you mentioned Apple, I'll mention something I saw on Hungry Beast...just started really watching that this year...where young people new to tv make a magazine style 30 minute programme...they've got some interesting regular features...here's the one on Apple:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj9JVXzoOYQ
They do a 'bit' on 'offline' social networking which may give you a laugh...near the end, I think. It's in "related" videos, if you click on the above link. There was a bit on "virtual drugs" which may interest you...seems I've inadvertingly been taking them! Last year I bought some cds of different frequencies which are meant to make you smarter, or sleepier or whatever. One of them did seem to sort of make me sleep better. That topic is Related too.
Lastly, what do you think of this power metal song? I like it...sorry if you've heard this before (I think that I may be recycling some You Tubes!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob9izeo-CU
Words: 3282
* Almost fitted my reply into one post! It seems that the word count above (not including this bit, and including the count too) is about what each post can hold. Hmm...my Word count for the IMDB truncated post comes out as 3,284...not sure how that works out!
re next gen consoles...someone posted this news item on a board:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/04/microsoft-and-sony-targeting-2014-for -new-consoles/
Don't know about the site...if it's reliable or not.
> forgot to mention, in that Once In A Lifetime docu they had an interesting/amusing bit from Americans discussing how the concept of a game without interruptions (soccer) would perhaps be difficult for Americans to follow...given the loads of interruption in American games (I've mentioned finding American games a pain for this very reason). From my point of view the American system is the unusual one requiring an explanation for all the breaks...could you imagine what the 100m sprint would be like if it was invented in the US? Carl Lewis would have broken the world record for it and it would still be over 4 hours long!
Also interesting was how the US invented their own way of resolving draws...which didn't really take off...my notes on the docu aren't here, but the US certainly had an odd view of what constituted a drawn series requiring some sort of tie breaker method...found my notes...in one game the Cosmos lost 2 - 9 (!!) and the other leg they won 4 - 0. Whatever way you add up the numbers, there's no way (in the modern system) that you'd require another game to break the 'tie'. Their opponent would have won 9 - 6 on aggregate. When scores are actually tied, away goals count for double...even with that system, Cosmos can't reach or pass 9 goals. Crazy! Maybe the Cosmos side of that era would be worth more than any club's team now...but it's obvious that their defence sucked! Oh yeah...note says Cosmos played Minnesota that time...conceded nine goals...to Minnesota! Hmm.
Another interesting thing...the politics of the clubs...an Italian player on the team and how he influenced things. Good docu.
Re A2A- someone else on the A2A board also thought that Ashes drew heavily from Lost, and almost copied the Lost ending, though someone else pointed out that the original air dates for the two series was like a week apart, with Ashes playing first. As for the ending, …..I wish they’d come up with something a bit more original. From what I remember, it wasn’t great, but tolerable. Finally have the whole show on DVD, so will probably be watching it on a tv soon. (I don’t care who says what; watching tv/movies is not the same on a computer, and no where near as good.) In comparison to US LOM, I think I liked Ashes better, but I have a hard time separating the endings from the rest of the show, and always did like Ashes better. Not by much, but enough where I’d rather rewatch A2A over US LOM. Think part of it is that Ashes got better as it went along. The first series was a ‘what did you people do’ type thing, but the rest was pretty decent. US LOM has a feeling to it that the production crew and cast didn’t seem to know what to do with what they were given. Maybe the writers knew where they wanted to go, but didn’t seem like anyone else did. The best part about the US LOM ending is the white shoe stepping on to Mars, which everyone always forgets about because the bit in the spaceship was so bad. Read a comment and checked myself, and the name Maya in Hindu means hallucination or illusion. While we know the US LOM’s 2008(?) scenes were also just dreams, makes for some interesting new arguments for LOM’s 2006 scenes being nothing more than a delusion.
Re St. Christopher – in one of my uni courses a professor actually brought up St. Christopher, saying that at one time he had been an official saint, but that later on the saint title was taken away for some reason. Can’t remember what he said it was, or if he gave the full reason. I’m guessing it was probably church power/political issues.
Re Lost- never saw more than a few minutes of a handful of eps, so couldn’t say much. Do remember reading an article where the producers or writers directly lied to their audience, saying that the ending wasn’t going to be as mundane as it being a purgatory story. Can’t say I have much respect for that. As for the fleshyness of A2A ending, I don’t know if it would have been any better fully fleshed. Was an article out when A2A S1 came out that several of the stories that had were going to be used with Ashes, the writers had originally wanted to do with LOM and couldn’t fit them in, and that the A2A S3 conclusion is what would have happened had they got another series with LOM. The Brit dramas I’m familiar with (which is very few, so maybe it is the kind of show I’m drawn to), tend not to give very definitive endings and leave several avenues open to speculation, which in some cases is better than trying to address every issue.
Re Sam- think it would have depended on how he would have fallen as to how his brains would have splattered. Looking at the building in the outside shots in 1973, the building I think was 5 stories. There are stories of people surviving that type of fall, so the brain is still intact. Sam jumped and from the various shots, just looked like he was trying to land on his feet. It would have been a hard hit to the head, but there is a high probability that the brain did not die on his impact. If he had dived off head first, that would have been a guarantee that his brains would have splattered immediately all over the sidewalk. Also, the part of the brain that controls keeping the body alive (i.e. breathing, heart pumping, etc), is at the base of the skull, and, in theory, as long as neurons are firing in that area, you’re technically alive. Of course, this seven year theory kind of goes by the wayside when you look at A2A because Alex also suffers a head injury and dies after three years in Gene’s whatever it is.
Re Railway Arms- By Ray’s reaction, the audience is supposed to assume that the Railway Arms shown in Ashes to Ashes, located in London, is the same Railway Arms as the one in LOM, located in Manchester. Since it was the local CID pub in Manchester, even the audience is supposed to find it weird showing up in London. Granted it probably would have had more of an impact if the outside of the Railway Arms was ever shown in LOM. It was never explained why the cops could come and go as they liked in Manchester from some place revealed in A2A to be a cross over point. Think it would have made more sense if Lugui’s had been the cross over point in A2A.
Re obesity- haven’t heard of fat fetuses before. Every now and again hear of a large baby that seems to really tip the scales, but haven’t heard any numbers on if it is a trend that they’re being born larger.
Re meals- they’ve cut back a little bit on stuff like that. There was a show on that I may have mentioned in our last round with this topic, “Man vs. Food” where he goes around and attempts to take on all those ridiculous tasks. I’ve come to the conclusion that those challenges are for college aged boys that go out with their friends and try to out do each other.
Re Fawlty Towers- I’ve never seen more than a couple complete eps, and that was several years ago. My grandmother has it on dvd and watched a couple eps at her place. Don’t remember the eps all that clearly either. Interesting move, could probably pass it off as an exercise move – strengthen your legs while improving balance all in one. Do you know what the guy says at the end of the clip? It is something holiday, but I can’t make out the first word. With the car one, think everyone has had one of those moments where you want to beat your car on bad days. Suppose the car is lucky (and Cleese for insurance purposes) that all he found was a twig that at worst would just scratch the paint. He makes a good point in the interview, about a funny idea being done exactly right. Some comedians understand this point, others don’t. Guess who makes it. Probably included in the skill set of appropriate comedic timing.
Re Macs- If you’re talking about this PACE thing, I think I’ve encountered that before, or saw it on my computer. Can’t say I’m surprised. Companies are constantly trying to stay ahead of the media pirates and not the first time they kept mostly mum about some software or app running in the background. There have been times I’ve tried to get music from a cd to my ipod, and I’ve had to go use a computer about 10 years old to make a copy of the disc, then use the copy to get the music on the mac and finally the ipod because the software embedded in the disc wouldn’t let the mac read it. Have had that happen twice; once with a Disney disc and the other with a Warner Bros.
Re taxes- it would be nice if the anime cds were even available in my state. Some states do still charge for some online purchases. City I live in sits pretty much on the boundary of two different states. Was helping my parents look for something on their computer on one of those sites that compares online prices and for some reason a weird shipping address was input and was for the bordering state. There was actually tax attached for that address. Then for something like British shows on dvd, I don’t have the kind of money to spend that they want for them in the States. For the six ep Sherlock series over here in stores they want $34.99 plus tax US. AmazonUK it was under $10 US, and shipping was neglible since other stuff was include in the order.
Companies are always against taxes against their industry and since they have the money to do the advertising, they usually can influence the most people. Not right, but that is the way it goes.
Re artificial price rigging- My dad enjoys going to auctions and one he was at the other weekend had stuff there from several different people, including some guns from a dealer. The dealer was at the auction and bidding on the guns he put in the auction so if he didn’t get the price he wanted he just took the gun home and could try again later. Doesn’t get any worse than that. I was also under the impression it was illegal – maybe I’m wrong.
Re press photos- I think, especially in the last few years, the trend has been to get some of the most ridiculous photos of the subject possible. Sport action photos are gold because athletes usually are making funny faces.
http://c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000DjJ0E3Lc1mk/t/200/I0000DjJ0E3Lc 1mk.jpg [/url[
[url] http://liveworldtrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Caroline-Wozniac ki-vs-Zuzana-Kucova-Porsche-Tennis-Grand-Prix-WTA-Stuttgart.jpg "]http://liveworldtrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Caroline- Wozniac ki-vs-Zuzana-Kucova-Porsche-Tennis-Grand-Prix-WTA-Stuttgart.jpg "]http://c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000DjJ0E3Lc1mk/t/200/I0000D jJ0E3Lc 1mk.jpg [/url[
[url] http://liveworldtrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Caroline-Wozniac ki-vs-Zuzana-Kucova-Porsche-Tennis-Grand-Prix-WTA-Stuttgart.jpg
http://everyjoe.com/sports/soccers-split-second-photography/?utm_sourc e=everyjoe&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=b5hubs_migration
http://www.tlu.edu/i/athletics/track/images/web_jessica_raglon_running _1.jpg
There is a political discussion programme that my mom watches, and earlier today they were discussing people that were thinking about running for the president elections. They were showing head shots of the different people, all of which were taken while the subject was in the middle of either a speech or debate, and the expressions made them look like a bunch of idiots (though being politicians they’re pretty much idiots to begin with.)
http://www.tlu.edu/i/athletics/track/images/web_jessica_raglon_running _1.jpg
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01741/BriceHorte feux_1741484c.jpg
Wish I could have found a shot of the graphic from that show, but that’s how it goes online.
Re odd field placement- anything to throw off the opposition. While no player would probably admit it, it probably throws them a little when some stunt like that is pulled. And if the player is already having an off day, might be enough for a major mistake.
I don’t think that baseball players can line up like that, and I’m not really sure what the rules are for league games. I know that in playground games if someone that couldn’t hit very well was up to bat, field players would move in to get the kid out easier. Think the base players have to stay within a certain space from their base, but don’t know for sure.
Re weather- at the end of May, we have places in the plains and Rocky Mountains that still have enough snow for the ski resorts to be open, which is basically unheard of. A lot of places over here are dealing with flooding. On the Mississippi River, the government blew several levies to flood some areas in order to protect others. It was also a slow start to summer, i.e. highs in the 50s F, but now we’re starting to get into the 80sF and getting ready to hit 90F. Had several tornadoes come through. One a couple hundred miles south of here a tornado hit that is the deadliest since the 1940s.
Re soap operas- they’re getting ready to cancel a couple soap operas over here that have been on for decades. Think one is All My Children, and the other is on the same network, but don’t remember which it is. Haven’t heard what they’re planning to put on in its place. Probably more tv judges, infomercials, and other stuff that no one watches.
Re music- for me how a song is played effects if I like it or not. There are songs that I don’t like in one style, but in another I enjoy it. Liked the cover better than the original on “Angel of Death,” but it is a matter of one is bad, the other is worse. “Violent Pacification” was tolerable. Liked it much better than either of the “Angel of Death” songs. I don’t think I’m much of a metal fan. Have never heard much of it, and was never quite sure who the bands were or what songs counted as metal. There would be some I’d see on youtube where the uploader would say it is metal, but then in the comments people would get into arguments about it being hard rock, or soft metal, or some other kind of metal, or something else entirely. Think the closest I come to metal is Rob Zombie’s “Dragula.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuLsxo20Rmo
I also like some Ozzy Osbourne. “Crazy Train” and “I Don’t Wanna Stop” are probably the two I listen to the most. (Side note: it is disturbing that when I was listening to “I Don’t Wanna Stop” on youtube, on the sidebar with the suggestions and whatnot, Miley Cyrus “7 Things” was a suggested option. Are there really that many people who both like Cyrus and Osbourne? Doesn’t seem like they’d have that many mutual fans.)
Re soccer/Kissinger- I’m guessing this was during the Cold War. US real good about shoving Latin America around and saying do this or else, and kind of surprised the US was looking for soccer people. It wasn’t until 1993 that the US Major League Soccer actually came into existence. Maybe the theory was that sports would bring people closer together.
Re Cricket- sure sounds like a set up for betting results.
Re accusations- was the pregnancy proven true? If the accusations were unfounded, why would he still be disgraced?
Re swimming- don’t think the marathon swimmers are covered in fat. A fat person might be able to float for, well possibly ever depending on the situation, but now actually swim. Their lungs would have to work too hard for the exercise. As for sepia coloured pools, there is an outdoor pool a couple miles from my parents’ house that they don’t cover during the off season, and usually the water that has collected in it over that time period is black before they get around to cleaning it out.
Re Amazon music- I bought songs off of Amazon and from iTunes – not the same song – but I don’t notice a difference in play quality.
Re online news- WWIII might be front and centre for 10 minutes or so before getting bumped. There would probably more fallout stories than direct cover.
Re body types- even an art history person probably couldn’t figure it out. Things like that only fashion people understand – or at least pretend to.
Re Whites- took a look at a couple of other clips, some with the waitress, how did she keep her job? In fairness, though, in moments of extreme boredom I’ve had philosophical wonderings about certain words myself, or at least etymological ones. F--k tends to be the most common. Yes I know it means hard sex, but when one uses it as a random curse when something does not go their way or say slams their hand in the door, it you use the rough sex definition, it is basically the equivalent of using sex as an explicative. Maybe f--- was originally shortened from mother f. Yes, sadly I get bored enough to think of this.
Re Hungry Beast- Don’t really know why anyone is surprised about Apple doing a quasi false advertising campaign with the think different one. Don’t remember seeing any of those over here, so either they weren’t on the channels I watch or they weren’t shown in the US. Didn’t realize they took that kind of cut from the iTunes store. I like iPods, probably the more “classic” models than the newer flashier ones, and I find their computers much easier to use, but iTunes has always kind of bothered me; don’t really know why. Bit ridiculous on not allowing apps that give directly to charities, especially looking at all the crap on the app store.
Loved the offline social networking vid. The guys doing the questioning look like Jehovah’s Witnesses though. Do want to point out that there are privacy settings on facebook, and only idiots let the world see their whole profile. It is a pain in the a$$ though to get all the higher privacy settings, and then every time facebook changes something, they reset your bloody settings. I do wonder more often than not why I bother having an account.
Just saw something the other day on that getting high off frequencies thing. Show I mentioned awhile back, ‘1000 Ways to Die,’ had a segment where one the people that put together the ‘drug files’ got his hands on military tech, and he used the wrong low frequencies in just the right order and caused his organs to some how destroy themselves. Sounded very unpleasant. While I admit that I believe that music can affect a person to a certain degree (relaxation, help get excited, etc) I don’t know if I really believe sound files could actually get you high. Getting high relies on chemical interactions, and the music would have to get the body to imitate those chemical reactions perfectly for it to work. Sounds like it may have started with drug users that fried their brain too much prior to using this were able to convince themselves they were high, and other people have bought into it, the more gullible thinking that they too are getting high.
Will say this: whatever the Hungry Beast theme song is, it sounds familiar to some other song I know, which I cannot remember what song it is for the life of me, and now have the same few measures running through my head on loop.
Re Caleb- that one I like, and haven’t heard it before. Don’t even mind the solo that much, and the solos are usually when the songs really start to bother me, though it is fairly short for a solo.
Re next gen consuls- the link wouldn’t open for me. The E3 Expo was this week, so there has been a bunch of news on the latest stuff coming out. Nintendo's new consul is set to have a touch pad controller, but also doubles as an extension of things going happening on screen, which don't know how well that would work out. Here's a couple different articles I found about it.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-21539_7-20069937-10391702.html
http://techland.time.com/2011/06/07/e3-2011-hands-on-with-nintendos-ne w-wii-u/2/
Re sport- I think Americans are as notorious for having short attention spans as we are for being obnoxious and fat. This probably also plays into why American tv is usually so-so at best – not enough viewers have enough attention span for more in depth shows. As for the tie system, that is the most ridiculous thing I think I’ve heard. You get your asses kicked 2-9, and then win 4-0, the other team should win. Maybe they were trying to do something like tennis, where each match counts as one point toward winning instead of looking how bad the player was actually beat. Question: why do away goals count double?
Word count: 3247
Down to only one post needed again! I feel like I must be missing some major point.
This was at 3274, but then I found out that E3 had just happened and wanted to edit in the stuff about the Wii U, so it shrank, and now it is past the original count. 3283
Have to admit that any thoughts I had on the US LOM are long forgotten...unless I archived them somewhere...if I remembered the white shoe scene that might have just been another "For God's sake!" moment...i.e. presumably it implies that even this 'resolution' to the mystery is bogus...an illusion. If it wasn't an illusion, then I suppose I didn't mind the ending because at least it was SOMETHING.
re Lost comparison...yeah, someone pointed out to me that the finale's screened close in time to each other...over here I think that maybe we had Lost screened soon after the US whereas A2A's finale was only recently screened here. It's just my take that Lost had been building to that kind of conclusion for a while, whilst with A2A it just seemed that they made a last minute decision to go in that direction.
re St. Christopher...already forgotten this part of our discussion...is that the guy I said didn't actually exist? If yes, it's just an example of legendary figures treated as real, when they didn't exist. Some people - maybe even some scholars - say that Jesus didn't exist...not up to speed on that! Doubt it though. Some interesting theories though on how he didn't actually die (I mean in a different way to legend)...he survived and went on to marry and have kids or something...or even visited India...gosh, if this is a different St. Christopher to what I think we're talking about, sorry for the tangent!
re mysterious British shows you like...think I mentioned it before...vague now...saw a remake of just such a show a year ago...forget it's name...The Village? Dunno...you might like it...thinking of tracking down the original, though it screened on digital tv, I missed it...probably full of annoying ads anyway.
I agree with your point though about keeping things mysterious...my take is that these kinds of stories aren't really coherent, so by trying make them have sense, you just open up logical flaws in them. Saw Source Code recentlyish...great film...on reflection it didn't really make much sense...there could have been a more realistic sci-fi story there, perhaps, but they went in a Hollywood direction...might have been logical, I suppose, if they kept the story more simple.
re Fawlty Tower clip...I think the man says "Have a holiday". As for Basil's move...I always thought it was called "The headless frog"...definitely not yoga...he's just humiliated so badly he does that! Also agree with you re car whipping...I often feel rage towards inanimate objects if they bug me...rest assured, I make them regret ever been born...hmm.
re Macs and music...have heard of their iCloud...you pay $25 a year, and ANY music on your computer is available in the cloud...the best version from iTunes...don't know whether I like that as a deal. You're still paying for stuff that you already own...but it's meant to tackle piracy...so, if you're a pirate, you can keep the music legally, for a fee...no questions asked.
re companies influencing tax...relevant here now...the government wanted to introduce a mining tax, but the industry spent millions to kill it. Watered down tax to be brought in...which might be bad news, as they are probably paying under the odds. Think I saw on Hungry Beast some mega US company which had made millions or billions in profits and paid a piddling amount of tax...maybe 1c in the dollar...not sure. Just not right.
re auction price rigging...there's an iconic scene in the Australian movie The Castle (a comedy)...a son is reading The Trading Post (for fun!) and reads out the price of an item for sale. The dad says "Tell 'im he's dreamin'!". Bit of a catch phrase. At least with those guys you know they will lower their prices if they don't get a sale. Fair market in that case, I suppose.
re your photo links...a couple don't work and the second one is malformed and is just the first photo repeated...more than once.
re politician photos...those don't work either...unless that tennis player is running for Congress! I think those kinds of photos show the bias of the paper...if the people from one party always get unflattering pictures published.
re field placing...I'm guessing in cricket that the match was over by that point...just doing it for a laugh...I'm sure psychology can come into it though...e.g. if you've got a really fast bowler and you place fielders on the fence and near the batsman, they may assume that the bowler is going to bowl short...aiming for their head...so, if they're weary of bean balls, they may get out playing a normal 'pitch' badly (i.e. a ball not aimed at the head). Too much info?
re weather...you in tornado country? Personally I'd find it stupid to live in such a zone, but by the sounds of it they're even more dangerous now. For some reason I've often had dreams of being hit by tornadoes...even multiple ones at the same time. Not sure if that happens. I've never seen a tornado, apart from in the news...where America is concerned. Leaves an impression in any case. Did hear of a young guy in the US recently who was sucked out of his car's sunroof and his dad was powerless to keep him in. Sheesh, that is scary. Australia has had a lot of floods in recent times...after a very long drought. Saw some of a docu on this...a place on high ground - a hill, perhaps - had a raging river on 'main street'...this was a town. Bizarre...not the kind of place you'd expect to get flooded.
re metal...yeah, always debate about what 'real' metal is...I think that the extreme has become the mainstream in recent years, so more conventional metal of the past is seen as not metal. Heard Dragula...no expert, but sort of sounds like dance metal...not that such a genre exists. If you like that song, maybe you might like these songs...not always metal though...here's a kind of dance metal tune I like...eventually warmed to it, after always liking the funky keyboard riff:
Coldseed - Low (metal band)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84A9tQplFp0
The Vines - Get free (Australian rock band)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eDWrlDR-Ro
Spiderbait - Buy me a pony (Australian rock band)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmWkgZ-b6sk
re Ozzy Osbourne AND Miley Cyrus fans...maybe that's a joke? But I've got wide tastes too...ABBA can be a deepy uncool band to like, but I love them, but I also dig extreme songs too...not sure if I've mentioned this track before, but the genre is apparently called blackened death metal...
Belphegor - Sanctus perversum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z5HESzJhHI
That song has a kind of majesty to it, I think. Fortunately, no doubt, the lyrics are hard to make out...Ned Flanders would not approve, I'm sure!
Anyway, I know that 'real' metal fans wouldn't approve my taste in metal...I like the melodic stuff...'real' fans probably like what they call bRo0t1e metal. So, don't pay them no mind...I love Metallica's ReLoad album...it's a great hard rock album...which is no doubt why their thrash era fans hate it. Also like Megadeth's Risk. That's also poppier than their 'real' thrash metal fans would like. I love "Prince of Darkness" off that album...so atmospheric...not sure if I've posted it before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoShWV7n0rE
re Caleb solo...can't say that I remember it...maybe I'm like you in that I don't usually get much out of solos. For me, great solos are as rare as hens' teeth. Slash has two all time great guitar solos, I think, in "Sweet child o'mine" and "November rain". The latter song is growing on me, in that before I would only listen to the song once I thought that the guitar solo was about to kick in. I think Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour maybe has a couple of great guitar solos too...I definitely think that the outro solo for "Another brick in the wall (part 2)" is the greatest guitar solo of all time...can't think of the other one I really dig, I don't think.
re Ozzy Osbourne...haven't checked out his solo stuff...heard all his Black Sabbath stuff...my fave albums are Paranoid, Master of reality, Sabotage and Never say die! Might have to check out Ozzy's solo stuff...one of these days.
re "Angel of death" original v cover...like I say, I find the song okay...don't really dig it...I dislike the chamber piece cover for the same reason I'm not into the original that much...it's not my style of metal. I like melodic stuff...the metal fans who identify themselves as 'real' metal fans, I think, would probably feel that 'real' metal starts with thrash metal, which was a movement heavily influenced by punk music. That Caleb song, I'm guessing, would probably be called "power metal"...a more melodic genre of metal.
Some bands no doubt actively choose to not have likeable music...have heard on occasion noise music on indie stations over here...just horrible. With Metallica's debut album, which was thrash metal, I'm guessing that they just weren't good musicians and song writers at that point, so their music was a lot of noise...they've written some great melodic songs later...I'm guessing because it took them a while to construct songs that well. 'Real' metal fans seem to like those early albums by thrash metal bands...perhaps that unrefined quality is what appeals to them...and that's why they loathe poppier efforts like ReLoad or Megadeth's Risk. Personally, I think these bands just got better at what they do, hence their sound is more commercial in time...it's not them selling out, they just become more proficient at what they do. I could be wrong, of course! I just don't get why their early albums are seen as good albums.
re US looking for soccer people...well, the head of a corporation was behind looking to sign up Pele, perhaps suggesting why Kissinger played ball, if you'll pardon the pun (speaking of puns, watch out for that phrase if you watch UK mockumentary "Come fly with me"...I've posted on those guys' other show "Little Britain" before, I'm sure). As for MLS - even before that league, soccer in the US was huge, due to that corporate interest in recruiting stars years before...like I said, it seems the US was at the forefront of creating teams which are like those which dominate the game now...Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea etc...teams with billionaire owners who buy the best players in the world. From what I've heard, this is unfair...they inflate the market price for players and often the company is using borrowed money to finance their team...could be a house of cards...seem to remember reading some years back that the US owned a good % of Manchester United, I think, one of the marquee soccer clubs in the world, due to them bailing out the US majority shareholders. Australian rules football has salary caps and drafts...it works well here, but I suppose in the world of soccer and US sports it would seem akin to socialism, perhaps.
re pregnancy accusations...this is my take on the teenage girl...she's hoping to snag herself a rich/potentialy rich footballer...she has sex with him, and claims to be pregnant. Presumably she wants to get married to them? She makes claims which are not believed and a player agent is scathing about her. In revenge she has sex with him and takes drugs with him, leading to him losing his licence and selling his company. That's the middle aged guy who is married with children. The girl is a practiced liar...she's come out now saying that she didn't have sex and do drugs with the disgraces player agent...I don't believe it. But if anything goes to court and they cross-examine her, BOTH sides will be able to call her a liar...she's had more positions than the kama sutra on what she did. So, though she did lie on some things, I'm thinking she's lying about it being false that she had sex and did drugs with a middle aged man. Following this? Her retraction only came out the other day...she's in the news again...but she did get footage of a near naked middle aged man in her hotel room, with her, and what looked like him doing drugs, from memory...saw a sports talk show this morning...the agent was asked in a clip from another programme what he was doing in her hotel room near naked etc...think he said something like "If we all knew that, we'd be geniuses"...good answer...wait a second! So, just saying I think she is lying about lying. Not sure if the girl is getting paid for these 'revelations'...or if she wants to lose notoriety over sleeping with a middle aged man who should have known better...actually
...here's a recent article in a tv guide lift-out on this, if you are interested:
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/ask-no-questions-h ear-no-lies-20110615-1g2ca.html
re swimming...I think marathon swimmers only, mainly, cover themselves in fat, to keep warm. As for sepia colour swimming pool water...a joke...bit like the line about not eating the yellow snow! Hmm...don't think I've heard that Zappa song yet...heard his first few albums in any case.
re stupid waitress in Whites...well, the waiter in Cheers was pretty stupid too...pretty much a prerequisite for sit-coms, I think. As for etymology...I'm pretty sure that F part of mother_ came first...the mother is what gets effed. Probably a Germanic word, I'm guessing. You used the expression "brains" in your post...that comes up often too...people using the plural for the singular...might be guilty of that too myself sometimes. I used to think that the phrase "Kick your ass" was a silly American expression...but I read Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, which has that phrase, I think...it's basically an old hand me down phrase which is still current in the US, surprisingly, perhaps. Have heard that swearing is actually good pain relief when you hurt yourself! As for etymology...I've wondered about the meaning of "Can't see the forest for the trees". Also, "Exception that proves the rule" is NOT what I thought it was!
re music drugs...like I said, I 'unwittingly' used them...bought cds which purport to change your brainwaves and make you smarter or whatnot. Not that I believe all the claims. Maybe one such cd of mine did actually work, at times...sort of like the sound of a needle at the end of the record, just stuck there...sometimes having this short track looped seemed to help me get to sleep. Was unaware that some of these frequencies supposedly get you high...sounds like something to tell gullible people. Maybe I'm gullible for buying any of these cds irregardless.
re Nintendo next gen...did hear that they used footage from current consoles by different manufacturers to pretend that that's what their console made games look like.
re Americans' short attention span...I have one myself! Have heard that this is factored into Hollywood movies...the studios factor in people taking frequent toilet breaks, so basically the movies regurgitate info so people don't lose the plot...dumbing it down, perhaps. Did hear of some law about how long someone could be seated without needing to go to the toilet...humourous, no doubt...i.e. not to be taken literally, but just indicative. Hmm...had trained myself, so to speak, to sit through an entire movie without going...but hadn't been to a movie in a while and when I came back, I had lost my elite level inflated bladder holding form. Too much info? Whatever happened to intermissions? You've probably never had those, right?
re away goals count double in soccer...just a method to determine a winner without requiring yet another period of extra time or another match...logic being that away goals are harder to score. As for 9-2 scoreline...well, the superstar team got flogged...just looking at the docu it looks like their midfield and forward line was Dream Team level, but their defence wasn't much good...probably mostly Americans playing there (sorry!). So, whilst they could score a lot of goals, they had a leaky defence. But still, with scores of 2 - 9 and 4 - 0, even with the away goal rule, the score is, I think, 6 - 9, against the superstar team. Bizarre result...maybe the powers that be just wanted the 'right' team in the final, crowd wise? If the score was actually 2 -7 for one of those games, then my point disappears, I think.
P.S. maybe post working links in your reply, not your previous post.
P.P.S. my word count is down too…might have to add my theory on how the world could live in peace and harmony to fatten the word count…when I have more time.
P.P.P.S. does this sketch do anything for you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19eVC2TVWrA
Word count: 2,750
Re Jesus conspiracy theories- are always fun. The problem with religion, is you have people take the texts we currently have at face value and will argue that those texts have not been changed since the day they were originally written down. They ignore transcribing errors, translations errors, editing that has been done to suit the interests of different people over the years, and the changes in the religious practices. Plus the fact that most of them were written down years after the events in the stories took place, and then not always by people that experienced the events first hand. Some of the theories that always entertain me are the people saying that the Revelation stories are in progress and the end of the world is going to be any minute now. We have a cable channel over here called the History Channel that for a while almost every Sunday they would run all day ‘the-end-is-near’ type shows and that the anti-Christ was starting to take control of the world’s governments. Those went on for several years, and then they started doing some reality shows and don’t have Here Comes the End Sundays anymore. The ones they were running were starting to get a bid dated, though. Maybe they’re just working on some new ones that are more up to date.
Re inanimate object rage- ever see the movie ‘Office Space’? There is a scene where two of the characters were just fired, and as a ‘going away’ present the third has stolen a fax/printer that has been an aggravation to them since day one. This is what happens to that machine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0_S_EdZ_I8
Sorry about the language, don’t think that is the original audio. The guy I work for has a fax/copy machine that I feel this way about. Think it is from about the same time as the one in the movie.
Re iCloud- it is basically anything on any of your apple devices (computer, ipod, ipad, iphone). From what I’ve read on it, it is essentially an external server to store the contents of your devices on. There has been for several years now something called remote PC that is suppose to connect like your house PC with your work PC, and I think something called the Cloud (makes you wonder where Apple came up with iCloud, huh), came with Windows 7 to connect some kind of home media with Windows laptops. With iCloud it just seems like Apple tried to cover all the bases of anything they could think of for all their devices. Personally I don’t know if it is really worth it. Maybe it you were in like the music, movie, or some kind of web business, but don’t know if I really see a need for it otherwise.
Re photo links- you weren’t missing much. The ones I found were okay, but not great. There was some I saw probably around oh, eight years ago that were all shots of professional soccer matches that were some really good shots. Think it was one of those side links on Yahoo. As for the politician photos, it definitely depends on the source, especially now. The political sphere is already gearing up for the bloody president election. It isn’t until November 2012, and the BS started in like April. Makes me wonder how bad it is going to be next summer.
Re field placing- you said you thought the match was over by that point. Over as in one team is so far ahead that there is no way the other can catch up? or actually over and the teams are just messing around for fun?
Re weather- yep, I’m in tornado country. Have never seen a tornado myself except on tv. Have seen a dirt devil or two, but those are just things that don’t have any power to move anything heavier than an empty paper bag, and don’t go from sky to ground; they’re just several feet tall. That was also when I lived in Florida, which even though isn’t geographically connected to the rest of Tornado Alley (where tornadoes are the most prevalent) is considered part of Tornado Alley, but most of the ones down there are weak ones, and from what I’ve heard most of their tornados are generated by hurricanes. People live in tornado country because it also happens to be the bread basket of the US. The most of the cities that developed in the area were the start of wagon train trails, and then a couple cities in the northern T.A. states are the government centres. Though, this year there have been more tornadoes in areas that don’t normally see tornadoes, like there was one or two in California, which I’ve never heard of before, and in the northeast there were some. While it shouldn’t be funny, it kind of was to be online when the tornado warnings (when a tornado has already been spotted on the ground or Doppler radar indicates a tornado is around) where out for the northeast and how badly everyone out there was freaking out. Yes, it is scary, but just get your butt to the basement and you have a good chance of survival. It is possible for multiple tornadoes to hit at one time. Was a movie several years ago (probably 15 or more) called ‘Night of the Twisters’ which was very loosely based off of a real night like that. Every now and again you’ll get tornadoes that have smaller rope tornadoes that are moving together and circulating around a central point.
We also have some major flooding going on right now. Up north there was a high amount of snowfall this winter, and the spring has been pretty wet, and the Army Core of Engineers (the group in charge of releasing water from dams up river) held the water back too long, and so now instead of just a couple areas being really affected, pretty much all along the river there are problems. Levies and dams are breaking and a bunch of people have already lost their homes and it seems like some communities might get wiped out. What is worse, they are talking about the flooded areas being under water for about a month, not just a few days to a week.
Re Coldseed Low- like the instrumental parts and the chorus, but don’t really care for the verses.
Re The Vines Get Free- The link you sent is blocked in the US (hate it when the vids are like that). Is this the same song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dssoJxJn2g Found the official video for it – not going to bother to link that one since it is on a commercial Youtube channel- and I’ve heard this before, think they play it on the radio from time to time. I like it. Have heard parts of it used in a handful of tv soundtrack before.
Re Spiderbait Buy me a pony- was okay. Would listen to it on the radio, but don’t think I’d buy it.
Re Belphego Sanctus perversum- on one hand didn’t like it, but as you said in some way it has a kind of majesty. Really don’t like the beginning, but it feels like there is a slight tweak and it isn’t as bad further on.
Re Megadeath Prince of Darkness- while I like the lyrics, and see a kind of poetry in them, I don’t care for how they are delivered. Oddly enough I like the instrumental bits of this song.
Two other songs that I think may count as some kind of metal are Nine Inch Nails ‘Capital G’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mir0tkiS8CY Hopefully this will still be up. Seems like vids for Capital G last for a couple months and then disappear. Don’t know if it is a Youtube/copyright thing or if it is a user thing.
‘Closer’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_qbP-aqsE
Re bands changing- on top of learning how to play and write better, it is also probably a choice of just wanting to do something different. It gets boring playing the same thing all the time. On VH1 (station that used to be dedicated to music videos and now just music related things) they do countdowns of the best genre songs of all time or best song of decade whatever, and when interviewing the band members it is always the songs that they are the most known for that they detest playing anymore. Wonder if the bands that have been around for several decades if they still like listening to the thrashier stuff or if it starts to give them headaches as they get older?
Re sport caps/drafts- every now and again you hear the term salary cap thrown around in sports over here. What it typically means is that that particular team has certain salary caps because they don’t have as much money coming in. Like the baseball team around here doesn’t have as much money to pay people because the team hasn’t been very good since like the mid 80s, and as a result the players we get tend to be newer players that are skilled enough to be in the major leagues, but aren’t the greatest. (After playing for us for a few years they tend to go elsewhere for bigger salaries.) Then there are teams like the New York Yankees who, if I remember correctly, have the capability to pay one player the equivalent of our entire roster payroll, or close to it.
We have drafts over here for sports, but they tend to be a lot of rookies. Sometimes if a player leaves a team because he doesn’t like the amount of playtime or something else they’ll do draft again, but this is pretty much only if they aren’t real well known in that industry and think they have a better chance there instead of trying to deal on the market one on one with the teams. Players that are already pro can also get traded sometimes so that that team can choose sooner in the draft. Lot of politics with drafts; lot of bull.
Re lying girl- girl sounds like a moron if she thinks she’ll get the better end of the deal here. She needed to start small time and work her way up if she wanted to play this game. Completely out of her league. Especially if she thought the media was going to play nice. We had an issue over here, think it was this past month, where a guy was on some live political talk show, was assured there was a delay on the show, and called Obama a d*ck on live tv. Guy should have known better, especially since he is an editor for Time magazine, but said it anyway. He was later suspended indefinitely from his post. Haven’t heard anything else on it.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-halperin-obama-dick-morning-joe-vi deo-2011-6
More interesting incident was in 2008 when Obama was running for president, and Rev. Jesse Jackson (a big left wing supporter) was on Fox news, had a mike on, the interview hadn’t gone live yet but it was recording, and they have him saying he wanted to cut Obama’s nuts “out” because Obama had been supposedly talking down to the black community. (While not an Obama fan, don’t understand how emphasizing being a responsible father and telling students to stay in school and forget about careers as rap artists or pro basketball players is talking down to anyone.)
Re music make you smarter- this gimmick has been in the US for as long as I can remember. Supposedly if you listened to classical music as an infant through toddler it was supposed to help stimulate your brain. For a while they were also saying that it helped too if your mom played classical music for you while you were still in the womb. Remember some pics from advertisements that showed headphones stretched over a pregnant stomach attached to a cd player.
Re intermissions- for live theatre and some concerts, yes, for movies, no, unless you wait for the movie to be on tv, in which case there are sorts of short intermissions that are always placed at horrible sports in the sequence of events called commercials. Don’t know if I’d like intermissions in movies. A lot of them are long enough as it is, and usually feel like there is something else I should be doing rather than sitting and watching the movie. Might be cheaper on studios though because then they could have shorter scripts because they’d waste a bunch of time after intermission recapping what happened in act I.
Re Tim and Debbie- yay crazy, drug fried, hippies. They need a pot plant on their table though instead of the one that is there. Are they calling the capitalist ‘habs’? I want to pay only a cerebral tax instead of the plebeian monetary taxes! Love how he has a stable position in the unemployment industry (sadly over here by some I swear that is a viable industry) and that he considers his unemployment check an artistic funding check. And marine economists in the sense mentioned in the video made me lol.
Word Count: 2203
* The Jesus stories...apparently even the Catholic church gave bogus historical interpretations of the bible to suit their own ends...e.g. they seem to have conflated a prostitute called Mary with Mary Magdalene...memory not good, but perhaps to do with shutting out powerful female figures from important roles in the church. And the bible has a curse on anyone who changes a word of it...think that there are a lot of people going to Hell as a result!
- re History Channel...was it Joan Rivers who called that The Hitler Channel? Do you remember that Shaun Micallef Newstopia bogus ad I had for "Hitler's poodle"? That show was on SBS...sort of like our own Hitler Channel. Surprised that your Hitler channel showed end of the world 'docus'...I know that kind of stuff is big in the US...apparently Rapture based novels are very big there...forget their tag...oh yeah, "left behind". Found an article I archived on this...haven't read it in years though:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Trail-of-fear-left-behind-by-mor al-crusaders/2005/04/02/1112302283732.html
re Office Space...I still remember the following scene from that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlDBi0cyIA
From memory that movie started off well for me then I felt that it just lost its way.
* re iCloud...think I read somewhere recently about a US company suing Apple over this word...they have that word, but it has now come to be associated with Apple's product...kind of like The Beatles v Jobs type scenario. Also, heard that Apple tried something similar years ago but it didn't take off...might have been Mobile Me...not sure. Issue is whether you are happy uploading your personal info to a corporation. Rupert Murdoch is making the news big now over his company's practices...and it's not even his users' info he is stealing!
* re photos...I remember one years ago from a rugby league match here...a guy jumping to grab the ball, I think, and a bit blurry...you could see a guy's forearm in the background...near the grabber's shorts...a man called "Horse" type scenario...i.e. the grabber looked like he had a big dong...snicker, snicker!
* re US election...I really hope the Murdoch furore in England travels to the US...I'm finding his papers here really toxic now...be good to see him fall...no more Fox News in the US with their bs coverage. Hey, I was watching Media Watch this week on that story...check out the Fox News interview with Murdoch...the Fox guy is soo obsequious (has video but transcript too if you can't watch it...it gets more local later, so you may want to stop watching then):
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3266976.htm
* re field placings...re the match is no longer a contest but still proceeding. You heard the phrase "Win lose or draw"? Well, in cricket, there is 4th option! Tie. A draw can be lopsided or edge of your seat. A tie can only be edge of your seat...that's where both teams have amassed the same total score and have no more batters to come to win the match...i.e. they get bowled out on the same score as their opponent. Memory not good, but for that photo I showed you the match was probably beyond either side to make a contest of it, so the Australians just entertained themselves.
There's an infamous moment in one day cricket (that photo was from the five day form of the game (!)) between Australia and New Zealand...it was legal at the time, but considered unsporting...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDuMudvbuqI
From memory, our captain didn't want the series tied (series, not match), so he ordered his brother to do that, so a further match would not be required or something.
* re tornadoes...I couldn't follow what you were saying about the warnings being funny. Is that along the lines of me finding it funny that the English considered temperatures in the mid 20s (C) a 'heat wave'? I.e. for Australians that is nuthin'! Also, I think it's argued that the more than usual twisters/hurricanes is a result of climate change...not sure if Murdoch is foxing, but whilst he professes to believe in that, over here he has rabid opiners and journalists whipping up hate against this notion.
- re flooding...I heard about this...my understanding was that small communities were sacrificed for the sake of larger communities at risk...I suppose that that is acceptable, but you do have to feel sorry for the small communities at risk. Did hear that parts of Auckland, in New Zealand, might be uninhabitable, due to their earthquake. Also heard how the Earth's surface is little more than analagous to the layer of skin on mil when you are heating it...a bit scary to think about that...that the 'solid' Earth you build on is really quite fragile. Do I digress?
* re Coldseed's Low...I agree with you...the intro was quite "meh" for me, but I always liked the keyboard riff and chorus...but the more I listened to it, the less that intro bothered me...really like the entire song now, but especially those bits you like too. Sort of in the same vein as that...this is my favourite Coldseed track:
Coldseed - Burning with a shade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y31MwPr_V4I
- The Vines: Get free...yeah, you got it. I always link to studio versions of albums, and official vids if the sound quality is good.
- re Megadeth...I spelled that right! If I was to nitpick about that song I'd mention the line about "I cause millions of accidents"...like Satan is responsible for you stubbing your toe on the gutter or something! re lyric deliver, yeah Dave isn't a great singer...he does character voices...he does try actual singing at times, in the little I have heard of him though.
re Spiderbait...I love their cover of "Black Betty"...you like this more than "Buy me a pony"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj-2rILWFyQ
re Capital G...bit of a "The way you make feel" synth beat vibe to it...I mean the Michael Jackson song.
re Closer...I was hoping that was the song with that lyric which I don't know who wrote or what it was called...bit grungy. Anyway, the "animal" lyric in Closer rang a bell...heard that line used in a radio promotion here for a certain on air comedian. I haven't explored the music of Jamiroquai, but he has that kind of funky vibe to his music...I won't try and link to any You Tubes of his...you can explore that if you like.
re bands getting better etc. Paul McCartney loves old time rock'n'roll...I personally don't dig it...the music was revolutionary, so the lyrics could be banal...Tutti Frutti etc. Metallica started off thrash and their last album, Death Magnetic, was a return to their roots...their 'real' fans hated their more commercial stuff. Phil Collins is an interesting taste...I was reading some comments of his...he wasn't a fan of early prog Genesis' overly complicated songs...he seemed a pop/rock drummer trapped in a prog band! I found some of his covers really banal...e.g. "Groovy kind of love"...a weak song, absolutely sedated by Phil. I think a band like Slayer moved away from the speed metal of Reign In Blood...I'm guessing because it was a financial ghetto for them...not that they went mainstream, but they just went more accessible, from what I've heard.
* re salary caps/draft...well, for basketball my understanding is that poorly performing clubs have more chances of picking a great prospect...in AFL over here the bottom club has a 100% chance of picking the player it believes to the best prospect. It has been suggested that teams here have 'tanked' games in order to get higher draft picks...which may be a reason to have an NBA style draft system...i.e. you could tank games without being guaranteed to snap up the best player in your view.
- re cap...it doesn't sound like you have caps there...sounds more like a budget for individual teams. It's like soccer too..in the past 2 or 3 clubs from each of England, Spain and Italy could just pay crazy prices for players, and the lesser clubs just couldn't compete. It's even worse now...Americans or Russians would buy English clubs, load them up with debt, and pay super crazy prices for players...actually, the Russians or Arabs are probably playing with their own money, not investors. The point is, these elite spending clubs don't have to run their clubs on sound business principles...they can spend more than they earn etc...just an unfair playing field...which is why, some time, they may consider introducing salary caps. Real ones. That might give the lesser clubs a chance to compete for premium players. The transfer fee/salary for some of these players probably exceed multiple teams' salaries for their entire teams.
re lying girl and Obama dick...heard about the Obama thing. Fox 'News'? re lying girl...ordinarily she would be a prosecutor's dream "Were you lying then about this, or are you lying now?"...coz right now she's contradicted herself so often she's of no use to any potential lawyer, whoever cross examines her. She's a crazy, mixed up kid. I do believe she had sex and drugs with that middle aged agent though...even though she currently denies doing so. Felt sorry for her when her parents kicked her out...think she might be back with them now, but after her latest interviews, who knows?
re music make your unborn child smarter...heard about this kind of stuff before..."hothousing" I think it is called...or that term may also refer to exposing toddlers to this kind of stuff. Not sure of the ethics, but perhaps scientists could do a comparitive study of pregnant women playing classical music to one child, speed metal to another child, etc. etc. I'm guessing the child which comes out of the womb looking frazzled is the one who has been listening to Slayer!
* re intermission...think it was Alfred Hithcock who said that a movie goer's bladder can only last 90 minutes before requiring emptying. No doubt he said it more wittily than me! I suppose the good thing about the old intermission system was that you got to see two movies for the price of one, or close to. And maybe sometimes the "B" movie was better than the feature! Of course, maybe even the main film had an intermission too. Titanic could have used it! Would you want to see Andy Warhol's "Empire state building"? I think that that ran for 24 hours!
* re Tim and Debbie...Tim was talking about the "haves" (cf have nots). I got a chuckle with his description of the multi-hyphenated genre band he was in and how the prime minister's indifference to this genre demonstrated how out of touch they were! I'm suprised you called them hippies...I was of the understanding that they were satirising trendy cafe types...no doubt with arts degrees, pontificated on everything. Is that pretty hippy too? Thought that maybe that sketch had too much info on them...re unemployment etc...I didn't remember them having such a specific take. What did you think of the woman's accent? I think that maybe there were actually people who spoke like at the time and she made them...not want to talk like that anymore! I also like how they always said "I know" to something the other person was just about to say, without actually saying it! "Did you know that..." > "I know!". re stable position in unemployment industry...I heard the business presenter in the news mention this interesting factoid about the US the other day...you need to have a job to have a chance of getting a job. In Australia the definition of "unemployed" has changed over the last decade or two, I believe...governments don't like having a high unemployment rate so they define 'unemployed' in a odd way...don't know the details, but for the sake of argument let's just say that if you work a few hours a week you count as employed...plumping the employment figures for them...not sure if we imported this idea from the US.
* Hmm...we've discussed education here before...couple of interesting articles in the paper today on this:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/heres-a-lesson-fo r-australias-education-policymakers-failure-begets-failure-20110714-1h fwf.html
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/repeating-grades-fails-stu dents-20110714-1hg3b.html
I'm pretty sure that I've observed the wisdom of some of the policies advocated in these articles in this thread.
P.S. I've dusted off my Helloween and Sonata Arctica albums, as I'm thinking of compiling a Rate Your Music list of my scores for the metal albums that I've heard. Have to say that on relisten I got more out of these albums. Since you like the cello, I think, you may get something out of Sonata Artica's album Unia, which has Caleb on it, which you said you didn't mind. They've got a bit of a Queen/Muse vibe to them, if you don't mind that kind of theatrical and anthemic quality. I discovered some more noteworthy songs by Helloween on the 2 for 1 cd I bought (The dark ride/Rabbit don't come easy)...I like the verses and acoustic guitar especially in the following song:
Don't stop being crazy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNBIxAnMfNU
I might add a Sonata Arctica song, if I've got my notes on it, later...got it now...
It won't fade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85k2bbtKOeQ
or, if you like the above song...
For the sake of revenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzQskbM-ArU
Hmm...thought I'd mentioned in this post here re business presenter on the news here mentioning as a factoid that in the US if you are looking for work, you need to be employed to have a chance of getting that job! The guy mentioned on air that he is on Twitter now and that's where the graphs he uses are from...via that I found out where he archives his graphs, it's here:
http://www.alankohler.com.au/
Can't remember off the top of my head which graphs struck me the most, but some of these ring a bell...on page 4 of the link above is "The gloomy words index" (!); page 2 has a scatter graph of the global debt problem...Australia is on the good side of that graph, but the US is somewhere in the middle...hopefully all his graphs get up...like his sources for his factoids too, e.g. needing to be employed in the US to get a job!
...found this vid via Kohler's site...saw a pic in the paper today (24/07) re this...what do you reckon?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERTcZV7uTFU
Word count: 2348
Re History Channel- don’t know who started calling the Hitler Channel. Had a History professor at uni that called it the Hitler Channel. Funnily enough his area was Modern European History, and he sort of looked like Hitler. My first thought when I saw him was ‘Our teacher’s Hitler.’ Saw him closer up a month or two later and the hair was actually the beginning of a comb over, though the thinning wasn’t very prominent yet, and the mustache actually was longer than it looked because the hair around the edges of the stache were more blonde while the rest of his hair was black or really dark brown.
Re Left Behind- never read them myself. Think I was in late elementary/early middle school when they started coming out. First I heard they were Armageddon survival stories, which didn’t sound bad, but then I found out about the religious bend to them and that was enough for me to not bother starting. Do remember they were huge over here for the original release. Looked at amazon to try and see original dates, but there are 2008, 2010, 2011 dates, and I know the whole series was originally released way before that. Haven’t heard anything about them in years.
The article does hit it on the head with the born again Christians. Don’t know why people don’t understand that they are dangerous religious whack jobs in religions other than Islam. Found this article that relates, and explains better than I ever could.
http://news.yahoo.com/christian-terrorist-norway-case-strikes-debate-1 81559379.html
Re Office Space- I don’t think I’ve ever seen the whole movie, and don’t remember this scene. Usually I come across it when flipping through channels and nothing else is on. It’s also edited whenever I see it for content and time. Think the first time I saw it was the only time it wasn’t edited, but that was years ago, late at night on vacation with the volume turned down so as not to wake anyone up. One of those movies I’m glad I know just so when it is brought up or someone references something from it I know where it came from. People imitating Milton the stapler guy was kind of popular over here for a bit. Think case of the Mondays got some play, too.
Re cloud- Thought it was just Windows that was using it, but was getting some music off of Amazon recently, and they too now have a media storage system that you can use to back up your digital purchases called Cloud. From a company standpoint I can see where they’d get territorial over the name, but from a consumer standpoint it kind of makes sense. Even though you switch to a device with a different operating system, you’d have an idea of what the program is for, even though the interface would be completely different I’m sure.
I remember something called Mobile Me, but don’t remember any specifics about it. Think that was right around the time I got my Mac, but with only having the computer it didn’t do any good. Stand corrected. Mobile Me seems to have survived as some kind of apple e-mail, and some type of app.
Re Murdoch- we’ve seen a little bit of the circus, but not much. Mostly they’re just blips on the nation wide nightly news, and Fox News still seems to be going as strong as ever unfortunately. Haven’t heard anything about it shutting down, and they’re the type of people that would be pushing their problems and playing ‘poor me’ routines to the forefront of everything.
Interesting video. Was surprised to learn that The Wall Street Journal was part of that empire. The Journal is seen with such respect, that it is hard to believe that the same people that own that put out Fox News. Haven’t heard about the Journal going away either, so I’m guessing that there won’t be much difference seen in the US. Have never seen professional journalists in a very good light, anyway. There is that old saying of doing anything for the story, and I seriously doubt any of these people are actually sorry for what they’ve done; they’re just sorry that they were found out.
You mentioned that there were agencies owned by Murdoch saying two different points. As sleazy as he seems to be, he knows how to do diversify to make money from both sides.
Re tornadoes- Yeah, along the lines of Aussies thinking it funny that the English call 20s C a heat wave, though that temp sounds wonderful right about now. We’re having temps 37-38 C for the past two weeks, heat indexes 40-43 C with either no wind, or sometimes a really hot wind. It hasn’t been fun. They’re saying that in a couple days our highs are supposed to be 32C.
Re New Zealand- I’d been wondering about what was going on, but hadn’t heard anything specific. Our news agencies are fine about reporting world news if there is a crisis, but nothing else. As for “solid” Earth, it is a myth people like to tell themselves, and so easy to forget how much the crust does move because we aren’t aware of it until earthquakes or tsunamis hit or a volcano blows liquid, fiery rock everywhere. I tend to take a very cynical view with this, and I think most of it is because I was growing up and becoming aware of how the Earth works when climate change was a big topic in science, so a lot of my science teachers would bring it up often in classes.
Re linking studio versions- my only problem with trying to link the official youtube channels is country copyright issues. There have been several times where I’ve been looking for a song on youtube or go to look at a clip from a tv show and it tells me that there is some copyright or licensing issue related to the country I’m in. The most ridiculous one of those I’ve found so far was a vid from a singer’s official channel, maintained by the record company, where the music video was available in the US for several months, and then one day I went back to it and it was telling me that it wouldn’t work in my country, yet I was using the same computer and accessing from the same connection that I had been before.
Re Coldseed – Burning With A Shade- didn’t really care for it, but I can’t think of a song where the lead singer does that throat-y kind of singing where you can barely understand/not understand what is being said that I do like.
Re Spiderbait Black Betty- pretty good; really like the metal banjo. Like Ram Jam’s version better. There is a gravelly quality to the singer’s voice that I find a bit irritating, and there are a couple lyric differences toward the end that keep catching my attention and go ‘hey, not right.’ Of course it is Spiderbait’s version so they can do what they want with it, but I’m one of those people that once I know a song one way, I tend to think of that as the correct version. Like when you’re with someone in a car and they start singing along to a song on the radio, but they don’t know the song that well so they are making up their own lyrics or don’t have the beat right.
Re old time rock’n’roll- some of it isn’t bad, but I’ve developed a dislike for it because I grew up listening to it on the car radio too much. My dad is a fan of that stuff, and whenever he gets in the car he turns on station that plays it. It is fine for maybe an hour or so, but when you’re driving on vacation, spending most of your day in the car, it gets real old, real fast. The playlists on the stations are not very long, and no matter where you are in the country, the DJ’s all sound the same. Grew up not knowing there was anything different until about second grade when I found out that radios actually had stations beside the oldies my dad listened to and the useless talk radio my mom listened to.
Re drafts- don’t pay enough attention to know for sure. The most attention I’ve ever paid to the drafts was seeing where the top players from my uni team went, and that is news that is usually in the e-mail from the athletic department. Never pay the NBA one any attention. Just know the sport journalists like to waste a bunch of time speculating which team is going to do what.
Re Obama dick story- you had a Fox ‘News’? next to it. Were you wondering if it came from Fox News or saying it was like Fox News? If you were wondering if it came from Fox, it didn’t. It was actually on a political show on MSNBC, whose news people tend to lean to the left, and I think Time Magazine is slightly left or neutral.
Re music for unborn- I think they have done studies about if the type of music affects development, but I can’t remember what the study results said. Don’t know if there would be any ethic problems since a mom that likes speed metal probably isn’t going to want to listen to classical, etc. There are so many factors that go into how a person’s brain works that they probably really don’t know what they are talking about. Maybe it has something to do with stimulating the developing brain, though.
Re intermission- ah, now I know what you’re getting at. Over here they’re called double features. There was still a theater or two that used to do that when I was a kid. Went to one when I was about five, I think, where the first movie was ‘Baby’s Day Out,’ and then the second was ‘Jurassic Park.’ We had to leave the theater when the attorney got eaten on the toilet. Not a good movie to take a five year old to with an over active imagination. The only places that I know do double features now are some drive-ins. There is one about half an hour from my house that is active during the summer, but was only there once.
Re Tim and Debbie- Maybe it was a difference in cultures, but to me they’re coming across as at least half-baked, the searching for words seems more drugged induced than clueless-ness, the clothes, the ‘I know’ stuff is something that I associate more with being high – thank you Hollywood – as well as the more drawn out speech patterns (well, unless they were from the US South, but I don’t see them completely fitting in down there) that are seem more hippy to me. Her accent was just weird, and helped me think more druggie hippie. Trendy café types over here usually dress a little more sophisticated, the areas they hang out in are decorated in dark, broody colours, and the speech patterns are different. Maybe I’m just thinking of more recent trendy café people, though, because I noticed the description said 80s parody.
Re unemployment- in US, the practices are swinging, for a reason I haven’t been able to figure out, that employers don’t want to higher someone that has been out of work for more than 6 months. There were a couple national news stories on this awhile ago, and the excuses from the people that were interviewed made no sense. Something along the lines of if people have been out of the work force that long they wouldn’t be used to working and not make as good of an employee and some other bogus BS like that.
Re education- why anyone would look at the US education system as a model is beyond me. On the one hand I can understand trying to get more money for students that are under performing in an attempt to get them to perform better, but I also don’t think it is fair to completely ignore the better performing students. The no national testing that Finland does seems to work, and I think that more countries would benefit from it so that teachers are actually teaching the material instead of teaching the test (a problem that has plagued US schools for years). For the low performing students, you have to find a way to motivate them to do well, or no matter what program you implement it is doomed to failure. God knows how much has been spent on programs to help the underachievers do better over here, to get them caught up, but it usually doesn’t work. From my experience there are two reasons. One, the teachers that they have in there don’t really qualify as teachers. There is something at the school my mom teaches at call ‘self advocacy’ classes, where the under achievers go in and supposedly learn to feel good about themselves. In reality all that it is doing is making the kids in there think that they don’t have to do anything period. They go into the advocacy class get told how wonderful they are, get shoulder rubs by the teacher, etc, and then go into their real classes, think they don’t have to do anything, and then wonder why they have poor grades. Two, the kids just don’t care about doing well in school, and know that they don’t have to do well to get keep getting moved on.
I can understand wanting to help kids do well in school, but you have to inspire them to want to do well or you’re just spinning wheels. One of the articles mentioned having kids stay after school, coming in on weekends, and summer school. Never quite understood how summer school is supposed to actually work for the core subjects. A kid didn’t pick up the material in the frame of a school year, but throw him in a classroom to study the same subject for five hours a day for six weeks and magically everything is supposed to stick. Always saw it as a more cramming than actual learning. Maybe if the kid was made to go to summer school prior to learning the subject in regular school, something would stick better because of seeing it before. Of course, the weekend, after school, and summer all depend on having the cooperation of the parents, and over here at least, you don’t usually get much cooperation from the parents of lower level students (not to mention the kids would much rather be anywhere else and see the extra schooling strictly as a form of punishment). A lot of the times you bring up that the kid needs help and it is why are you picking on my kid, or once the kid is in the extra help classes, the teachers aren’t worth their paycheck, even though they supposedly have degrees for specifically helping those types of kids.
When it comes to education, the politicians in charge of saying how things should be done have no clue what they are talking about, and don’t bother to listen to anyone that does. Should be laws that you can’t mandate anything in education unless you’ve spent so many years in the classroom as an instructor. Enough of a rant?
Re ‘Don’t Stop being Crazy’- Is okay, might grow on me if I keep listening to it, but not overly memorable. Not something I’d associate with metal.
Re ‘It won’t fade’- liked it better than ‘Don’t Stop Being Crazy.’ Disliked the part earlier in the song where the guy is screaming into the mike and can’t really understand what he is saying, and found it to be a little long.
Re ‘For the Sake of Revenge’- Bit of an abrupt ending, but liked this one best out of the three. Where are these guys from? Thought I could detect a bit of an odd accent a couple of times.
Re football clip- how the eff is that legal?! Awesome catch, though. Must have been a great boost for the team and its supporters who caught the ball.
Word count: 2715
P.S. My mom bought me a baking book the other day that is out of New South Wales. In it for baking temperatures it has the C temp and the in parentheses it has the F temp slash Gas 2,3,4,5,6, or 7. Is the gas number an Aussie thing, or do you have any idea?
re Hitler channel...for some reason I link Joan Rivers to that...I paid a mint to see her at a comedy festival over here...at a casino...not sure if she used that line in her show. Also paid a mint to Steven Wright at the same annual comedy festival...he was funny...like those funny quotes for the day in calendars...but gee...90 minutes of that? I would have been happier with half the show for half the price...actually liked his warm up guy, Aussie Akmel Saleh (spelling?)...this is him...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yfrzQeUlAQ
re born again Christians being dangerous too...yeah, I've heard some crazy Americans have gone on killing sprees in Israel to start World War III (Armageddon, in other words). It's a weird mix...the US has strategic interests in the region and they can sort of play to the religious crowd...support the creation of Israel yadda yadda...the Christians believe that there must be a state of Israel for Jesus to come again...I sort of get the impression that the area was peaceful when it was all just Palestine, but then imperialist nations like Britain, the US and the UN created Israel after World War 2...also get the impression that a lot of the conflicts/genocides in places like Africa is due to colonial powers like Britain making arbitrary borders..."Hey, let's create a nation here, without reference to the politics of the region...what could possibly go wrong there?".
re Cloud...just mega servers, I believe. Have also heard that the cloud could make platforms redundant...I mean the whole PC v Mac v Linux kind of thing...if it's all in the cloud, it doesn't matter, I believe.
re journalists...yeah, I think they are way down in polls here too re occupations...maybe with politicians and used car salesman. I always watch Media Watch here and you get to see the dodgy side of journalism. Think I've linked to vids/stories from there online presence here...I watch the tv show. re Murdoch and saying different things...I think I was saying that publically Murdoch says he believes in things like climate change, but his newspapers here are rabid deniers...which just made me wonder if he's sort of playing good cop/bad cop. Politicians play a similar game...say one thing to one interest group and say the opposite to their opponents...getting the support of both sides and ditching one after they are elected.
I can sympathise with you re temperatures...it's not unusual to have years here where you get consecutive days of temperatures in the 40s. It's worst when the evening brings no relief at all...i.e. at least it's something when you get a cool change at the end of the day and opening doors and windows actually makes a difference.
re New Zealand...last I heard swathes of the city would be deemed uninhabitable...people encouraged to just move out of there. Maybe that's unheard of...but I do find it odd how L.A. citizens can happily live in an earthquake prone area!
re You Tube restrictions...I think Australians get short shrift there...often I'll find a link not working because Australians aren't allowed access to it. Another bug is that these official sites can have really dull sound quality...good quality audio on unofficial videos uploads are great...but they get removed. Hmm. It's not like the labels crimp the sound on networks who have music video shows...not sure why they'd do that online though...it's like a music video show from my point of view.
re throaty vocals and Black Betty...I think I heard that Spiderbait's version has filtering on the vocals...it doesn't bother me. Coldseed actually has a throaty singer (but he can sing cleanly). I actually prefer Spiderbait's version now...I love the banjo in that too. Ram Jam covered a blues version of the song...Leadbelly? Often I'll find myself preferring an Australian cover of an overseas song...e.g. The Angels' cover of "We gotta get out of this place" by The Animals...the original is pretty soporific.
re your mum listening to talk radio...I'm not a fan...I prefer listening to experts on stations like Radio National here...tend to tune out when talk back is on Local Radio here (non-commercial)...it would really suck to listen to commercial talk back radio, I think...the adds...the uninformed opinions etc...fortunately I don't live in a shock jock type of city where the announcer's opinions are often as offensive or stupid as their callers...Media Watch has covered this this year.
re drafts...I can still name Seton Hall...my all time favourite basketballer, Aussie Andrew Gaze played for them and helped them make the final or win the college title...think the crowd chanted "One more year" to him that game. He played a negligible role in the NBA...if he'd done more or given a bigger role in the team, I might have taken an interest in the NBA. Years ago I ran topsy turvy NBA leagues online...i.e. one league where fouls etc got you hammered and another where they rocket boosted your scores.
re Obama dick comment...yeah, I was wondering if it was Fox...it's the kind of comment you would expect that network to come right out and say to his face! When I had cable, they brought in Fox News and I checked out Bill O'Reilly's "No spin zone" or whatever he called it...man, he was spinning faster than a centrifuge! I archived my initial impression of him.
re double features "We had to leave the theater when the attorney got eaten on the toilet"...I'm hoping you are talking about a scene in a movie and not some horrific cinema where you live? Actually, maybe that's the kind of cinema one would enjoy going to...ambiguous! It's the indie cinemas here which have double features now...drive-ins too, I believe...they are sort of coming back, I hear. Not sure, but maybe there even used to be intermissions for one movie...foggy memory.
re Tim and Debbie "I know"...I thought that their twist on this was saying the phrase BEFORE the other person had even started saying something! Is that not novel? I dunno. As for more sophisticated in the US...well, I suppose that over here I imagine pretentious cafe types as looking bohemian...or black skivvies etc...black something or other. And Tim and Debbie seem to have an arts background in their terminology...is that common amongst hippies over there too?
re hiring practices...maybe there is something to the view that if you are out of work for a while, you may lose that work ethic or something...I'm just noting that the oddness of the incestuous nature of employment now...you can't get a job unless you have a job...that sounds silly!
re education strategies...yeah, that sounds good...advanced teaching in a subject during summer. But I suppose maybe the smarties might object to starting behind the slower learners? As in maybe some parents might take counter measures in order to re-establish the status quo? Like I said, over here you read how some schools 'encourage' students not to attend the tests to determine the effectiveness of the teaching if they are likely to bring that school's rating down. We have school ratings now...have been 'teething' problems with this...e.g. very small schools being rated as privileged, behind those mega-rich schools...some of which even get government funding! That seems to be an oddity...state schools maybe falling behind in quality, whilst rich schools get some tax payer funding. Like they need it. But I think that maybe isntead of summer school, just more work through the course of the year to keep children up to speed would be good...after class work, weekend work, perhaps. Dunno. Not sure if I posted last time re diff between teachers here and Scandanavia...along the lines of over there the teachers have a lot of educational qualifications, whilst over here you just do a degree in teaching...some even have a one year qualification course, if you already have a degree. Different over there, apparently...they're vastly more qualified to be good teachers. re advocacy classes in US...yeah, sounds pretty stupid when you say it like that. You'd think that the system would obviously be flawed to anyone looking at it.
re where Sonata Arctica from...without Wiki-ing them, I'd say they're Scandanavian...one of those countries. I liked that Helloween song the best...quite pretty...can't say the others I don't mind are memorable...neither is the Helloween song, but when I hear it, it reminds me of how good it is.
re how that mark (catch)legal in AFL footy match...maybe technically it wasn't (I'm no expert though)...it was allowed though. You CAN jump on people in AFL! However, my query is with the flyer putting his hands on the other player...that's where it might 'technically' be illegal. In the following round, I think, there was a clearly legal mark taken by a big man (it's from an offical site, perhaps, so hopefully you can view it from there):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glvCyggHu-A
re cooking...I'm not really a cook or an observant one at that...I'm surprised that you don't have numbers there...I'm assuming that it just corresponds to the arc of the dial...where something like 2 would be very low temperature and whatever the big number is being close to full heating. So, guessing something like 3-4 being medium heat...just the midway mark of the dial's rotation...maybe there are some forums where blue haired Aussie women can help you out?! Out of curiosity, who is the cook book by? Maybe I've heard of her?
Just by the by, recently I took out some free cds from music magazines that I occasionally buy, and one song quite grabbed me...thematically, the music was described as New Wave Of Traditional Metal...this following track is quite catchy...has some occultish lyrics but it's not really off-putting...the music reminds me of something...can't put my finger on it:
The Devil's Blood - The heavens cry out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjcBgl40dGQ
A cd from a prog magazine was interesting...this is live...no studio version available:
Sine Star Project - Chinese drag queen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANleMauTJN8
edits in:
Heard on NewsRadio (tail end) a story re basketball fight between China and US college team...here's a vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmG9G-ZwDDc
Just based on the vid, it seems the US commentators have it arse backwards...around 48 seconds in, the US player takes a swing at a Chinese player who moves into him...that seems an over-reaction...but my knowledge of basketball rules is minimal...you'd expect such collisions to be reasonably common, but throwing punches in response to be quite uncommon.
Recently read that there is an Australian Rules Football competition on now...the International Cup. The story I read mentioned the U.S.A. playing South Africa. Looked on the official website and I saw some results...USA has won it's first two games:
http://www.afl.com.au/More/PlayAFL/International/InternationalCup2011/ AFLIC11Fixture/tabid/18052/Default.aspx
It's pretty much a back of the sports pages story...not big news...the best competition in the world in the AFL, which is club based...unlike the US, we don't call that competition the World Series! You do get some dreamers in the AFL who would like to see Americans recruited to the AFL...hard to see that happening though...our highest paid AFL players would get paid - I assume - what rookie basketballers get paid. Saw an old You Tube of Team USA playing Aussie rules in the same competition over 5 years ago (you can just glance at it, if you like):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOwDL4P2Qd0
AFL has had success in recruiting Irish Gaelic football players though...quite a few have played at AFL level...some are even legends in the game here...Gaelic football is amateur, so it's easier to tempt them to switch codes, I imagine!
P.S. what music are you listening to now? You said you like soundtracks. I've been listening to some recently...Bond movies...a while back I saw a Bond movie festival and the oriental flourishes intrigued me, so I bought some of those soundtracks. A while back I heard Pink Floyd's soundtrack to More, which I quite liked. I've got a Michael Nyman compilation and his work for The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover...watching the movie years ago, I found the soundtrack hypnotic. Got Halloween soundtrack. Thinking of getting a Ennio Morricone soundtrack too. Years ago I bought the Death Wish 2 soundtrack...recently I heard that Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page did that. The s/t didn't impress me as much years ago on cassette...seemed better with the film.
P.P.S. the % in that AFL International Cup link I gave are just insane...I mean, after 2 games...teams with a % over or near the 1000 mark! It's derived from the points for and against in the matches.
P.P.P.S. I heard that the US will play Russia in the rugby union world cup, coming up soon...tongue firmly in cheek, I'll call that a match of "traditional rivals"! Did read somewhere that the world cup was the 3rd most popular sporting event in the world, behind the soccer world cup and the olympics. Dunno if that is right. Do remember hearing some ridiculous claim when the US hosted the Olympics that some 32 billion people were watching it, or something of that order. I'd be fascinated to know how they arrived at that figure!
P^4. Totally random...I watch a tv show here about advertising, The Gruen Transfer. There's a segment on that called "The pitch", where two ad agencies create an on topic ad (for a dubious cause)for a meaningless prize. I liked this one last week...hope you don't mind bad language!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ2SKjM7ew4
There's more examples here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gruen+transfer+the+pitch&a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;aq=f
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Re Akmal Saleh- He was entertaining. Looked at some of his other stuff and found him funny. Seems to be one of those comedians that should be more well known than what he actually is, but probably doesn’t have the right ties to be promoted as well as some that are more well known, but not as funny. Is it like that in Australia entertainment industry? Where it isn’t always how talented a person is, but rather who they know?
Re Middle East/Africa- has never exactly what could be considered peaceful, but I don’t think in country fighting was as bad prior to the creation of Israel. As for Africa, don’t know if any country boundaries should have ever been created; too many different tribes and groups. Should have just pulled out and let the natives do what they wanted.
Re politicians- don’t trust any of them. Like you said, they’ll say whatever their voters want to hear, and then they do whatever they want when they get in office anyway. Also like when voters pass some law amendment, somebody with influence decides they don’t like the effects, and they get some judge to say it isn’t allowed for some reason or the other.
Re earthquakes- the only reason LA took off was because the weather in Southern California was decent enough year round for movie production, and from my understanding there are not enough large earthquakes to bother people. And really, most of California is earthquake prone, but enough people like it out there not to care. It also seems no where is really safe as there was just a 5.8 quake that was centered in eastern Virginia that was felt all up and down the east coast earlier this week, and just toay Aug. 27 there was a 2.9 quake in eastern New York. Wouldn’t mention the smaller quake, except that a hurricane made ts way up there at the same time. Think it was just a tropical storm when it hit New York, but it is was something like over 6 hours of sustained tropical storm conditions. Plus the Northeast already had had a bunch of rain in the past couple of weeks and the ground is already soaked. New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia all shut down public transportation for half a day or longer, depending on what conditions were like. Around 4 million people were without power at one point, and a week later there are still people who don’t have all their utilites restored.
edit: On 9/9 saw that there was another earthquake, this one a 6.4 on Vancouver Island. Plus the past couple of days, the same area that had problems from Hurricane Irene, is now being flooded from left over rain from Tropical Storm Lee, and New Orleans had some flooding as well.
Re Youtube- with the online videos, I would imagine in the early days of posting online music videos, enough computer nerds could probably strip the music from the video and distribute it illegally. So by making the music quality poorer, people would still want the official release instead of settling for the crap quality pirate copy.
Re talk radio- station mom listens to is mostly local morons, along with syndicated shows from Rush Limbaugh(sp?) and Bill O’Reilly. Whenever I’m in the car and they come on I just turn the radio off, but she always turns it back on when the local ones come on. I don’t know what is the worst thing about that show: the such lop-sided opinions of the radio personalities, the people that call in that agree with them, or the people that waste everyone’s time that call in with opposing view points – no one that listens to that station is going to take what they have to say seriously and just brush off the opposing opinion.
Re Bill O’Reilly- Both his radio show and tv show are use that “No Spin Zone,” and I don’t know how he can legally do that. After listening to it for 5 minutes it is clear that every story he gets a hold of he spins it whatever way he wants. Sometime I think he wants to be the new Limbaugh. But, he is an extremist, and I’ve never heard an extremist that actually sounds sane when talking about anything.
Re double features/attorney eaten off toilet- don’t remember much about the theater we were in. Moved states when I was seven and haven’t been back since. As for the attorney scene, have you never seen Jurassic Park? That scene is sort of a comedy classic from that movie.
Re Tim and Debbie- The “I know” bit I’ve seen done in some of the no-brianer comedies over here, usually involving college/high school kids doing something stupid, though depending on when that bit was filmed it very well could have been done first with Tim and Debbie. Oh! Remember where I’ve seen (or at least pretty sure) that “I know” bit from. In an ep of Family Guy, Stewie and Brian are in a café in Amsterdam that serves pot and they get high off the fumes. They pull the same joke about knowing what the other is going to say. By arts background in their terminology, do you mean the philosophy speech? Some hippies do. The talk about only seeming happy with material stuff sounds hippy, and the iceberg metaphor sounds kind of hippie, though Tim’s band is in no way hippie.
Re education- I don’t think most of the “smarties” would object to the slower kids doing getting a crash course the summer prior to learning the material primarily so that during the regular class time something could actually be accomplished instead of having to go over the same thing time and time again without it doing any good. Of course you will have some students and parents that think it is unfair, and will probably have their kid in the summer courses right along the slower learners, but that is just how it is. The thing is, if the kid can pick it up in regular classes without any problem, I don’t know why the parent would make them go to the summer class just because the slower kids saw the material first.
As for not attending tests, that doesn’t work over here. If a kid is absent during the testing period, whatever they missed has to be made up, usually the following week, and if I’m not mistaken, there are penalties if the attendance rate is too low during testing periods. At least those are the rules as I am familiar with them in the state that I live in. Despite the federal government sticking their noses in education, there is no national test that the kids take. Each state has their own, though sometimes a state will use another state’s test if they think it works better. Like I lived in Florida when I first started going to school, and the test we took down there was the test that the state of Iowa made up. In Missouri, they have their own for of test.
Re AFL- that is nuts; you can’t touch people with your hands to get on the other guy, but it is no problem using him as a human step stool with you legs or knees. Hate to see what the stepstool’s shoulders would look like the next day after getting stepped on with those cleats!
Re ARF competition- saw USA finished fourth in their division. Guess we didn’t do that bad. As for recruiting, I would imagine you could recruit some players from here that don’t stand a chance of being drafted into the NFL but who still want to play.
As for that other vid you linked, I know there are rules, but no matter how many times I see these vids, it mostly looks like just barely organized chaos. And as for the US name, could they be any less inventive with the team name, Revolution, really? Or the team jerseys? Like how at about 3:24 after the ref threw the ball in the air, it looked like the guys going up for the ball were trying to discretely trying to kick each other.
Re cookbook- the book itself is just a general baking book, think the title is ‘Baking.’ As for numbers on dials, we have the numbers on stove dials, i.e. 1-8, high, and low, but on ovens, the markings are degrees Fahrenheit, with most starting around 150 and going up to I think around 500.
Re Devil’s Blood The Heavens Cry Out- Enjoyed, though I could only understand about three words of the chorus in the whole song; the rest of it blended in with the instrument parts.
Re Sine Star Project Chinese Drag Queen- Think would make a good soundtrack song. Little slow for my typical tastes, and it probably would have sounded better if it had not been a live show – the vocals were really low and difficult to make out.
Re music- Mostly I’ve been listening to the Pirates 4 soundtrack, which has several tracks that have some Latin guitar. This is one of my favourite tracks, “Angry and Dead Again.” Especially like 1:46 on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT8Zd_dySLA
Had an opportunity to get a CD from the duo that plays the guitar on the Pirates album at a place that was going out of business, waited because I thought I could get it for less, and was gone when I went back.
Also listening to the ‘Born This Way’ album by Lady Gaga, and this parody by Wierd Al:
Perform This Way - Wierd Al Yankovic (this is an official Vevo, so hopefully it will work)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss_BmTGv43M&feature=feedf
The series 1 and series 2 scores for the BBC series Merlin. The following song is from an anime that I’ve started watching in the past couple of months (finally a new decent one on tv), have been listening to that one and the other three theme songs from the show.
Uragiri no Yuuyake by THEATRE BROOK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH4wUeLNg7o
Also have had the following songs stuck in my head lately. The first one was in a commercial over here, the second one I would hear on the radio and would get the verses stuck in my head (prefer the verses anyway) without being able to id the song until about a week ago, and the third one was used in a make up artists competition show.
Wow and Flutter by April Smith and the Great Picture Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaNkAbLnu3Q
Rolling in the Deep by Adele
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBRUkdQa6Is&feature=feedf
Zombie by Natalia Kills – this is the vid that I had bookmarked before I bought the song. It is a fan vid that uses Britney Spear music video parts, but the song is accurate. Didn’t care for the official music vid on Vevo, and got sick of the commercials and the extra audio and pauses, and since I usually just had it playing in the background, it worked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5Hqb_R4hOg
Been playing ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ by Sheryl Crow, the theme song to the Bond movie by the same name, and just some other random songs that I sort of rediscovered in transferring music to a new ipod. My parents got me a new ipod for Christmas 2010, and I finally got all my music moved over to it about a month, month and a half ago. (Yes, I was a big slacker when it came to this. In my defense, once I had the new ipod, I stopped having problems with the old one. Now I still have a tendency to use the old ipod to listen to music, and use the new ipod to do small things online, i.e. check the weather, look at some twitter pages, do fast imdb checks, etc.)
Re Georgetown/China BBall Game- There is a lot worse contact all the time in games at all levels. Do agree that the Georgetown guy started it. I’m guessing something else was going on behind the scenes that most people will never be aware of given how quickly and easily things spiraled out of control. I’ve seen some shoving matches start to get out of hand in bball at all levels, but few get this bad. It would help if players were held to at least the standards of the average citizen, but sadly they are not. Most athletes have criminal records of some kind, and no one seems to care just because they can handle a ball, and in many cases because they can handle a ball they get off lighter and are back on the team in no time making millions.
Re Gruen Transfer- Loved the swearing commercials, and have to agree with the panel, liked the first one more than the second. Was the guy who made it even an Aussie? Didn’t sound like he had an acent.
Found this one about Anti-Oz Tourism. Found the second commercial funny mentioning that 22 tourists are killed annually and the girl’s miming what someone would think, and then I think of how many people are killed per state in the USA annually and can’t help laughing about how such a low number would turn people off. Yes, I am very aware of horrible that makes the USA sound, but the truth is never pretty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfY7VzO0AFI
I haven’t been able to find one of these that I don’t like and find entertaining.
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Re Akmal Saleh - he has an infectious personality...you could invite him to hang out with your friends and he'd probably keep everyone entertained without anyone getting a word in sideways! I don't think he's short of a quid either...last I heard he was hosting a breakfast show on FM radio and he is also in a sketch show now. You know that clip I posted a while back of Good News Week quizzing the star of Supernatural about stupid game show answers? Well, it's reinvented itself as a sort of sketch show/Saturday Night Live type of show. Akmal's on that. And the host of that show is always complaining about how Akmal talks too much! Personally I found the format of GNW stale and hadn't watched it for years, but I'm giving the new show a chance...just forgot about it and missed the 2nd ep! A bit hit and miss, but I'll give it a go #. Akmal is also popular on the comedy festival here too...might draw some of the biggest crowds. I mentioned American comedian Demetri Martin here...when he was doing the festival here he always had big crowds. He was here recently, unrelated to the festival...bit pricey, so didn't see him, unfortunately...comedy festival is cheaper, and I always go to what the programme calls "Tightarse Tuesday"...if that is censored here, that's "Tight ar$e Tuesday".
# edit in - Watched the 3rd ep...pity that the show starts past its advertised time, as I noticed that South Park returned that day (so I'm recording the series), and I was recording series 3 of Breaking Bad so that when series 2 got shown on the main channel I could then get up to speed with my recordings. Basically missed most of GNW as my PVR can't handle that many stations. Had a storm that night, so turned on my PS3 PlayTv in case my PVR had jerky motion when Weeds was playing...which made me realise...oh yeah...I can watch all of GNW using PlayTV! Doh! Anyway, got some laughs out of what I saw of that ep of GNW...Akmal was a bit hit and miss as North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il...but I got a laugh when he said that "You know how comedians who tell a joke and don't get a laugh say that they died? Well, when I tell a joke and no one laughs the audience dies". That was a good one. Also got a laugh out of Tom Gleeson having a rant about climate change sceptics...he's becoming a climate change sceptic sceptic...despite all the evidence to the contrary that they exist. Seems you can get some hits on You Tube for "Good news world". I like the puppet in the series.
re Israel...could be wrong, but I think I heard that for centuries it was peaceful, with Palestine being the country, and Jews living there. Somehow it became a 'protectorate' of Britain, and it and the US or something carved out a Jewish homeland...apparently quite a bit of deceit on the part of Britain or the US in that process...telling the Arabs one thing and the Jews another...they scammed the Arabs, in other words.
re "As for Africa, don’t know if any country boundaries should have ever been created; too many different tribes and groups. Should have just pulled out and let the natives do what they wanted". I think the US is going to do that to Iraq and Afghanistan...we'll see how that goes. Those cheese eating surrender monkeys the French invented countries, I believe. So, colonial powers creating countries in Africa etc was probably more to do with their own interests than that of the locals.
re "Also like when voters pass some law amendment". That's a foreign concept here...this happens in the US? Over here referenda are notoriously difficult to get through...perhaps too often they are patently party political. Think the last thing we passed was some sort of recognition for Aboriginals. Just by the by, creating polls for years in music at Rate Your Music, I came across a gobsmacking song from an American Johnny Rebel - I believe his name is - for 1967. Try Wiki-ing him. The songs listed there are even more gobsmacking than what I saw on RYM.
re natural disasters in the US...heard west coast is due for The Big One re earthquakes and something about super-volcano in Yellowstone or whatever it is called...kind of volcano that could create nuclear winter conditions for the planet. You mentioned saturated grounds...think I mentioned here the floods we had in Australia...apparently there was a town in Australia's north which is on a hill or something...they got flooded badly...on a hill! Hmm. We get small quakes here, but I've never noticed them.
re talk radio and bias...this has been bothering me recently over here. I'm guessing it's the Fox-ification of media over here. It seems to me that the opiners are spouting revolutionary language about a 'leftist' female Prime Minister...and I have seen citizens on the news asking conservative politicians about what actions they should take against the government...it's talk of " illegitimacy" and "liars" etc. It's just inflammatory. I'm sure O'Bama got the same treatment over there. The commercial talk stations are pretty right wing. Had the misfortune of listening on a bus to a new station which is very much of the right. The host seemed to be 'schooling' listeners on buzzwords to use against the PM. The babble was just about how bad she is and how soon can we get rid of her. One listener asked what he could do to get rid of her, seeing as politics was ineffective or something. Surprisingly, the host didn't mention getting a gun and...
The Murdoch papers and right wing talk stations are all about denying climate change and endlessly trying to force an election. Don't even really listen to the talkback on the ABC...they're a government funded national network...sort of like the BBC. The ABC now have right wing opiners as guests, in a regular capacity...who complain about how left wing it is and how the right wing don't have a platform for their opinions! The right wing media just seem to 'school' citizens into believing that the ABC is unreliable and untrustworthy, due to their 'left wing' bias. And they spout their stuff about climate change being a scientific fraud or whatnot.
re Jurassic Park, I was joking with what I said, but I don't remember that toilet scene, I don't think. Do remember that scene with the kid in the pantry or whatever you call it, hiding in a steel cupboard. Was that the first one? See...I do remember some things I see in movies!
re Tim & Debbie and arts background...their discussions are littered with a very leftie conceptual scheme...Capitalists, blah blah blah. I don't know if Tim and Debbie invented that "I know" stuff...they beat Family Guy to it, but, like I say, it just seems novel that they say the phrase before the other has even said anything...I'm sure there have been sketches or whatnot where some guy says the most stupid thing and the other guy says "I know".
re summer courses...well, I just thought that could be a way to get slower students to solidify what they have already been taught, and to get a little taster of what everyone else will study the following year.
re tests and having to make them up...sounds eminently sensible...wonder why we don't have that here! But, on the other hand, yous having different tests could be a bit of a worry...as in do they pitch a test down to make the state seem to be achieving certain outcomes?
re ARF...I assume you mean the Aussie Rules international competition? Noticed that there was a women's tournament too. Not easy to see finals results though...you'd think that the tournament would be over by now!
re okay to jump on someone's back...well, if you put your hands in someone's back, the logic is that that pushes the guy out of the marking contest and so they're at a disadvantage. This conversation seems familiar now. In primary school I took a "screamer" in a school game...i.e. jumped on someone's back to take the mark. It really knocked the wind out of me when I landed on my back after taking the mark. I doubt if the guy who I jumped on had any such concerns. I briefly played for the school...I was reasonably tall, so I played in the ruck...guy who taps the ball to team mates at the bounce. Don't think sport where I was had proper coaching at all...I just had no idea how to play the game after I had done that jump...just stood in the middle...seemed pretty boring, so I stopped playing. Maybe I coulda been a contender if I had been properly coached? After taking my screamer in a practice game you'd think I could of been chucked up front, as a forward...someone who can score or set up goals. Compared to rucks in the game as adults, I'm am woefully short...at 6'!
re recruiting Americans...seems a pipe dream to me...we used to have exhibition games in the US between our AFL teams...I'm guessing it was just expats watching it! I said that to someone at work and they called me "cynical". There are two new teams now in the AFL...lots of silly money being bandied about them...one young guy, with not career to speak of and hardly a star of the game will be the highest earning AFL player when his team starts next year...not sure...one or two million he'll get a year...our dollar is a few cents higher than yours the last time I heard...but it's pretty comparable to what good first year NBA draft picks get, I assume? As in near the top picks. European soccer is also paying silly money...the clubs aren't run as proper businesses...billionaire Russian oil magnates just inflate the wage market for the clubs that they own. Think their money is comparable to what the top NBA stars or whatever earn over there.
Actually had a look at the clip I gave re USA v S.A. Aussie rules match...that bit you refer too is the position I played in that primary school game! I don't agree with your comment re them trying to sneakily kick each other, but I'm pretty sure that in AFL games that has been an issue...rucks aiming their knees at the other guy's ribs or whatnot. But that vid, gee, shaky-cam! editing was pretty brutal too, but so was the lack of scoring too, I suppose!
Hmm...if I heard this idea from anyone else I would probably hate it for its American-ness, but I was thinking we could have an international version of the game with gridiron type goal posts and an equivalent to the 3 point line in basketball. Could maybe even play it on soccer pitches with less players. One Irish comic here in Australia joked in an ad about the point posts in AFL "I can see what you were trying to do there"...re how in our game you score 6 points for a goal, but if you miss, you get a single point. So, just saying that a gridiron type goal would get rid of those stupid points!
re ovens - hmm, I would have thought that Australian ovens had degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit. Haven't heard of the slash # system. I don't have blue or mauve hair, so not really my area of expertise!
re Devil's Blood...I could make out some of the witch's brew ingredients, which was a little off putting. To me it sounded like a song with commercial potential, so just wondering about the occultish language. Might try and chase down the album that that comes off of though.
When you mentioned POTC I sort of inwardly groaned! The music you linked to is quite pleasant though...a poster mentions in the link that the st is better than the movie! I stopped watching the series after the first one...just did nothing for me. You mention Latin guitar...it sounded Spanish to me, but I'm no expert. I'm not sure if I've posted this before, but here is a well respected Australian finger picker...this is his theme for a now defunct rural affairs programme:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlazrogEq5o
Tommy's done stuff with Chet Atkins etc. I checked out Robert Johnson's collection of blues songs...he does some interesting finger picking stuff. Not a fave of mine, but he's highly regarded...influenced Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page etc.
The Weird Al track works...had seen a little bit of it before, so I didn't watch much...wish I'd clicked on the ad at the start...something about a Beached As reunion...remember those cartoons I posted about a beached whale? Something new from them, I think.
re Uragiri no Yuuyake by THEATRE BROOK...you sure that that isn't a Weird Al song in Japanese? Positive? Guy sounds a dead ringer for Al!
Nice coincidence re Adele song...many weeks back I surfed onto a chart music orientated station and made a note of this song when I heard it...I like it and might even check out the album...one of these days. Don't really listen to chart stations...when I surf there, I'm hoping to catch Britney Spears' "Piece of me" or Lady Gaga's "Just dance" etc. Not sure how you feel about those pop songs!
I'll take a punt posting this song...one of my all time favourite Australian songs...doesn't really get played a lot on the radio over here though:
Do Re Mi - Man overboard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbf5gD6S2W8
re Zombie...you're saying it's the original version? I thought it was actually Britney Spears' version. I looked at the official vid and it has a different vibe to it. Maybe I liked that slightly more...some of they lyrical style was good. The Spears (?) version was poppier.
re Bond movies...from my point of view the last great Bond song was "All time high" by Rita Coolidge. Love Shirley Bassey's stuff too. I know that some of the new themes did go a bit retro for their sound...names escape me now...dunno...maybe Garbage's theme?
re Re Georgetown/China BBall Game - just going on the radio stories it seemed like the Chinese team had done something heinous...looking at that vid, I didn't see anything untoward, but, like you say, maybe there was something you didn't see. Otherwise it just looks like one-eyed biased American commentary.
re Gruen Transfer...I hear that the format has been sold internationally, so there might be a US version of the show sometime (not sure). re swearing commercial guy Aussie...don't remember, but it's an industry that lends itself to being able to work anywhere in the world. Some regular panellists are from New Zealand...the other week there were two Kiwis, and I'm pretty sure I've heard English sounding competitors...like in the previous ads for invading New Zealand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9kkVo7Rv8g
Oh, there's an American (Canadian?) in this clip...the second ad amused me re international competition. "Bogans" are unfashionable people, fyi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUkDL49o9SQ
That anti-Australian ad mentioned tourists dying...I've heard of at least two news stories here re Americans going on a boat to snorkel and being left behind by the boats...after a head count! Maybe in one case people died...there was a movie on this, I believe...forget what it was called...couple of years old maybe.
re number of deaths being amusingly low...I was amused by expat Aussie in England Clive James' clip of a New Zealand news story...lead story, from memory, concerned an elderly lady having her bag snatched...that probably embarrasses Kiwis, but sheesh...what a world where that is the worst that happened that day!
More to come - note to self...real Aussie ads...was gonna post up a Doors Plus ad but it seems quite mild to what these English comedian performing in Australia describes...it's unflattering...bit like something a foreign comedian would say in New York..about Southerners! Funny though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ko6BC7Vl8Q
Some notorious ads here:
Ken Bruce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWGIytePrRI
Franco Cozzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTpLVOUx0D8
Saba (last 10 seconds)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PdWyYrU_B0
Gruen does show some stupid American ads...one was for a back scratching post...by a notorious guy...forget why...one who faked his kid getting lost in a balloon? Dunno. Oh...actually, Gruen has been doing a "Worst products of all time" series this year...and this stupid American product takes the cake, I think...I'll give two links...one from Gruen, and one from You Tube, in case Gruen's doesn't work for you (do you think you could use a product like that? Does it have any practical applications, you think? It's just occurred to me...South Park had a great ep recently about a new exercise device for women...that'll be my 3rd link, below:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/stories/s3322724.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etU_wtP5Pck
South Park - Shake weight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqm_vNS-HX0
re music...I recently checked out Miles Davis' Bitches Brew album...the title track seemed quite sound tracky to me. Explored him some more...Kind Of Blue not really my cup of tea though it's meant to be the jazz album that non-jazz lovers love. BB was more that kind of album for me, so I may check out some more Miles Davis. It's a pretty long track, but just the first few minutes are soundtracky to me...like from a 70s cop show or something...tense bits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc7qiosq4m4
P.S. the US beat Russia in the rugby union world cup...must have been the talk of the nation, yeah? Australia lost to Ireland yesterday...sheesh...hopefully it's a reality check and we can go on and win another cup now...but it will be tough...not like basketball world championships...though the US has lost to nations in those.
Oh, re Weird Al...don't know if I've posted this before...an Australian parody of Meredith Brooks' "Bitch", by Chris Franklin...not sure if you need to know the original to find this funny!
Bloke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFVedjvliWo
Can't remember if I've posted this humourous track before...not a parody though...it's Australian too:
Peter Denehy: Sorta, dunno, nothing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_veIGGP1Uh4
Oh, you mentioned having an iPod,I think...do you download lossless audio? What's that format called? How much more space does that take up? One chain here has a disc burning service but I found out it wasn't cd quality...after I had bought a couple of cds worth of song! Have heard that iPods are becoming passe now too...replaced by what?
There was a very powerful billboard shown on the Gruen Transfer some weeks back...from New Zealand...here's a story on the billboard from a NZ news report:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlSyieFqql4
Over here the Transport Accident Commission hasn't been subtle over drink driving campaigns for ages...here are a couple...the first one I always found shocking (added some more...I'd forgotten how powerful they were...not sure how effective they are viewed as being now):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXiyFkJMAPI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqvLcVBOhP4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWwbAgmE3N4
Word count: 3121 (sorry! Think it was only around 2,200 odd first time around!)
You can't create a post without a body
Re Akmal Saleh- good to hear that he seems to be able to pull more gigs than just stand up shows. Much better to get his name out there and a wider viewership.
Re high priced tickets- for being one man shows, comedians can be very expensive to go see. I know there is usually a backdrop, they have to pay the backstage crew, and the venue gets a cut, but they still seem pricey. Think I mentioned on here before a comedic ventriloquist named Jeff Dunham. He was doing a solo show at my university’s arena when I was there, and thought I’d go as a birthday gift to myself, but the ticket started at $60, and then taxes and other fees were added on, so it became a lot higher. There are many other things that I could spend $60 on, thank you.
Re law amendments- happens all the time here, at both state and federal levels. Usually you see it more on the state level, like in an election, guess it was last November, maybe, that there were three on the ballot. Don’t remember the first one, the second one had something to do with taxing tires in landfills or taxing companies rethreading tires (one of those things that gets on the ballots but no one except the politicians and the people it involves have heard of it prior, mainly because the immediate affect is only to a particular group), and the last one was known as Proposition B. It was supposed to add stricter guidelines to the already existing law on how dog breeders treated the animals they had for breeding purposes and limit the number of breeding animals they owned, make it easier for police to fine, arrest, charge those people that mistreat their animals and run puppy mills. On the ballot, it passed no problem. A bunch of breeders continued to fight against it though and a judge overturned it, with the claim that it was unfair.
At the federal level, you don’t see it as much because there are so many ways for Congress and the President to get around having to do it. Think even when it does go to a vote, there are still enough loopholes that the politicians can bring in/throw out what was voted on if it isn’t in their best interest or the interest of the people greasing their pockets.
Re natural disasters- there is a show on the History channel over here called Mega Disasters. They were having a marathon the other day, and several were on the earthquakes that different parts of California are due for. San Francisco has two different fault lines apparently that could wipe it out, and LA is sitting on top of one that could completely destroy it. Guess the good news for the people of LA is that that fault line is only supposed to be active once every thousand years or so. Think the volcano you’re talking about is Mount St. Helen’s. There was the mainly smoke and ash eruption that happened I think sometime in the 80s, and scientist keep saying that was just a precursor and “soon” it will get highly active, blah, blah, blah. While I know that these disasters are dangerous, there are times I think the scientists just like to predict that a disaster is around the corner so that people will pay attention to them. After all, when else does anyone listen to a geologist or a volcanologist?
Re talk radio- as much as I’m sure the very right wing talk show host would have liked to suggest a gun (are the crazy right wingers over there such guns nuts as in the US? Or does Australia tend to treat gun ownership more like Britain?) I doubt he could quite get away with that, and who knows, maybe some of his saner listeners would stop listening, and thus it would be bad for the numbers.
Re Jurassic Park- the attorney getting eaten was during the storm, right after all the dinos started getting loose. And, yes, the kid hiding in the steel cabinet was from the first one.
Re tests- I don’t know if there are any kind of national regulations as to what the tests have to cover or not, or if there is anyone checking them. From the ones I took, I just thought that they were fairly simple for the level that they were supposed to be at, but I also remember looking around the room and seeing people struggling with it.
Re school sports- never played any for the schools I attended, just got through gym class, but maybe would have been more interested if the gym coaches would’ve actually cared about doing anything other than sitting around. They would divide us into teams, give us the equipment, and blow the whistle every now and then to switch who we were playing against while they sat around and talked mostly. Flag football was one of the few games I tended to enjoy when we played it, but playing with the other girls usually meant very boring games, i.e. they didn’t really want to play and barely made an attempt.
Re scoring- they really get a point just for trying to score? Yeah, think I like your scoring idea better, and much easier for new comers to the game to comprehend. One of the quickest ways to turn people off of sports is complex rules/regulations and scoring practices.
Re Tommy Emmanuel guitar piece- sounds good. Prefer there to be more than one instrument in a piece though.
Re new Beached Az- liked their earlier stuff better.
Re Theatre Brook- you really think they sound like Weird Al? Just don’t hear it.
Re pop music- most of the pop music I like is from about the mid 90s to the early 00s, think about 2004 was when rap really started taking over our top chart stations and then I stopped listening to the radio for a while. I’m actually glad that more music is starting to come out that reminds me more of the pop music from that time. Can’t say I’ve ever been a big Britney fan; do like ‘Baby One More Time’ and one other of hers that I can’t remember then name of it, always enjoy it when it comes up on the ipod.
Re Zombie- there is only one version of the song (unless there are some remixes I don’t know about) and that is sung by Natalia Kills. Listening to the two again, there is a bit f a difference in sound, but it is definitely the same singer. My guess it is either the person editing the vid did something to it or the software they were using or when they uploaded it something happened. Still prefer their mash up over the official vid. One of the reasons I usually avoid the official vids is because they do make the music sound different, usually because there is a bunch of extra crap that was added to it, whether sound effects, or extended bits for some action in the vid (see Lady Gaga’s ‘Judas’ vid where there is something like 40 seconds of added), or just extra speaking (I know there is some long speech at the beginning of Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ vid that throws a bit of a different feel to the song). Or maybe the song was tweaked at some point between releases. If I remember right from when I was looking for it there was a single release of the song and then it was released on a full album, because some of the other fan vids have a slightly different sound than the official one. Whatever the reason I tend to listen to the version I have on the computer more just because don’t have to tie up the internet with it.
Re Man Overboard- interesting song. Took me a couple listens to understand some of what was going on. Not a fan of the talking in the beginning, but that is just something I tend not to like in songs period unless it is from a musical, and I really like the repeated music at the end. Odd sound whatever it was, though I wouldn’t want to be listening to it for a super long time.
Re Bond themes- I like Shirley Bassey’s ‘Diamonds are Forever,’ less so ‘Moonraker.’ Goldeneye was the first Bond film that I saw on the big screen, though I’d seen some of the older ones at my grandma’s house from time to time – mainly Live and Let Die and then some of the Connery films. Do have a collection of the Bond themes on disc through Licence to Kill, but the ones after that I’ve had to find individually so far. Don’t have recordings for the last two themes; have one for Die Another Day, but it is a live version, so I’d really like to get a studio.
As for sound, Goldeneye done by Tina Turner has a bit of an older sound and ‘You Know My Name’ by Chris Cornell for ‘Casino Royale’, as did The World is Not Enough by Garbage.
Re Gruen Transfer- I love the invade New Zealand ad, saw that one before, as whenever I start looking at these I have a very hard time stopping. The Bogen one I found funny that the American (pretty sure he was American – didn’t hear any of the subtle Canadian accent) suggested the fence.
Re snorkelers being left- think I know what movie you’re talking about. Was released several year ago, think in the trailers they kept playing up them being harassed by sharks or something. Remember this one tv show ‘I Shouldn’t Be Alive’ where there were two divers that had been pushed away from their boat by the current while they were under and the boat left them out there. What was really stupid in that instance was that they were the only two divers, a researcher and an assistant. I think that was in the South Pacific, but I don’t remember if it was around Australia or further north.
Re low death in NZ/lead news story- guy I knew from uni traveled to NZ for three months last year, and remember one of his twitter updates when he was over there was something like all of NZ had fewer murders per year than just the city we’re from. Maybe there are some small towns still where a bag snatching would be the lead story over here, but I really can’t imagine an entire country like that. Would think it would be a point of pride for those that live there instead of something to be embarrassed of.
Re ads- aren’t most commercials in retro-sight bad though? There are a lot of current ones that are bad, and we might not think they are that bad right now (even though they are) but in 5-10 years, we realize how absolutely horrible they are.
Facial Flex- do you have any idea how many crappy products like this they push per year? I was actually in a grocery store today where there was now a vending machine where you could buy these items that used to be only available through tv ads/infomercial type things. Have to wonder if the porn industry came up with the facial flex though to help train new girls or improve mouth muscles for certain activities. (Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.)
Shake weight has actually branched out to the men consumer market as well, now. They are supposedly larger and heavier than the female version. One complaint about the South Park parody is that when the mom is using it at home it looks like she is having to shake it herself whereas it is supposed to be motorized and shake on its own. No I do not have one, they just run these crappy adverts waaaaaay too much over here any more.
Re Bitches Brew- didn’t listen to the whole thing. What I did listen to reminded me a bit of the music to the anime Cowboy Bebop, whose soundtrack was very jazzy for the most part. Can hear some 70s cop show, if you take it in small sections. Sort of like a bunch of sneaking around and tackling the bad guy clips put together.
Re US rugby win v Russia- yep, made national news headlines and everything. People celebrating in the streets, people crying, saying it was the best win since we beat USSR in 1980 Olympics at hockey.
Re Bloke- I think one of my favourite things about this in listening to how the word tattoo is pronounced. Love the shots from about 1:32 to 2:00. In the third verse they say the season’s already changing (from ? to cricket). What is the first sport they say? At first I thought they were saying footie, but on a closer listen I didn’t think so.
Re Sort of Dunno Nothin’- One of the best songs I’ve heard in ages with one of the most appropriate vids. Love how the only thing that gets the younger guy’s attention is video games, and even when he is playing Scrabble he is staring straight ahead.
Re ipod download- When I have to download, it is usually from Amazon.com, and that is an mp3 format. Other than that I don’t know, and most of what I download are free albums, never heard the songs elsewhere and not likely to, so don’t know about quality loss. There have been one or two songs that I paid for that I did know from elsewhere and I questioned the quality a bit. The only defense I have of this is that it was probably close to 5 years ago and things change. From iTunes I’ve only downloaded one or two, and can’t remember about quality. Only way I can put it is that I don’t really notice anything wrong. Why amazon over itunes, especially since I like Apple products? I don’t know. Have an easier time finding more free stuff on amazon, and more different stuff, but as for the paying stuff, I just don’t know. I also think that the cds that are sold to consumers aren’t quite as good as the ones used professionally and the software/hardware to burn them is probably just now starting to catch up quality wise. Haven’t heard about ipods being replaced, unless they are talking about people using their phones, like the iphone or some of the others that are trying to compete. Personally I think I will always have an ipod now for music. I like having my whole collection with me, and that is too much to keep on a phone, but I’ve also been one to use a phone only as a phone and alarm clock, so I’m not exactly the normal consumer.
Re driving PSAs- And I thought the billboard was creepy, but those are brutal. You’d never get away with showing anything like that over here. The ones over here are all kind of generic where you might see people for a couple seconds, accident, and then emergency responders at the scene. You’d definitely never, ever see the body of a dead kid on the road or see the guy lieing dead with blood around him like in the first one. Don’t think they’d ever use kids in these ads period. Think driving age is the youngest you see, but never a kid that looks maybe 10-12 get run over by a large truck because dad had too many and didn’t stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdzBwZRKCbo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsSIpDK16c4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jFAvIuAev0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeMuegKdnug
These were the ones I was able to find, though some of them seem a bit dated. The most recent one that comes to mind depicts a couple of different cars being driven by people, and the car is filled with whatever the person was drinking. Like one car is filled with red wine, another with martinis. Then they get stopped at a police checkpoint and person goes to jail. Don’t exactly evoke the same type of reaction, do they?
When I was in high school, I remember some older kids talking about a video about drunk driving that they were made to watch around prom time, and then some car that was completely totaled, crunched up, and looked like it had shoddily gone through a compressor at a dump yard was put out in front of the school. Think the car might have been part of a campaign to get people to wear seatbelts as well. Do remember the cars being there all four years. Granted the way the cars always looked, odds are having your seatbelt on wouldn’t have done you any good. Just would have meant being crushed to death in the car instead of being ejected and possibly dying on the road or in hospital. Don’t remember ever seeing the video myself, and usually only caught glimpses of the cars since I didn’t usually need to go by where the car was set up.
And on that oh so happy note, cheers!
Word count: 2875
Wanted to reply early as I read something today which related to your previous mention of cooking temperatures (please say you remember bringing that up! This is sort of related...you may or may not enjoy this book...it was mentioned in yesterday's local Murdoch tabloid lift-out)
http://www.slatterymedia.com/articles/showArticle/Possum+Pie,+Beetroot %20+Beer+and+Lamingtons+-+a+cookbook+with+a+difference/172
re $60 for a ventriloquist - well, the Australian dollar is like a yo-yo at the moment...about a month ago it was buying US$1.10, but then it dropped to around 96c...now up to around $1:03...so...I'd probably swing from "That's cheap" to "That's expensive" every other day! You don't have nearby comedy festivals once a year? No "Tight arse Tuesday"?
re laws - in the state where I live the government is or is looking into outlawing American pit-bulls. One poor family, originally from Africa, I think, lost a child to such a dog, which mauled it. Bit of a legal grey zone, because I don't think the owner of the dog could get charged with much...maybe a $5,000 fine, if memory serves. New laws to make them liable for consequences. Also something on the front page today about new laws for puppy/kitten farms. But I take your point about obscure laws being voted on...they can get bureacratic sounding, for sure, giving a response of "Who caes?".
re federal laws in the US...don't really follow politics there, but from what I've heard, it seems to me that Obama really whimped it on the impasses with the Republicans...apparently he could have implemented Democratic Party policies, but he tried doing it via bipartisan support, with the end result being that he didn't get it and he didn't get his own party's policies implemented. Sheesh...the whole point of government is to make change...why shoot yourself in the foot in that way? Self-inflicted lameness there, it seems to me. Australia probably doesn't have that kind of option available to it...at the moment we have a minority government and one of the independents wanted poker machine restrictions put in place for his support...so the government is taking flack from the gambling industry in order to stay in power...they look on the way out...the shock jocks hate them too.
re mega-disasters...I think that screens here, though I've never really watched it for whatever reason. I thought that the earthquakes in LA were big once a century or something...and you're overdue? Re volcano in US...if that goes off, I get the impression that it's all academic aftwerwards...I mean, even your survivalists looked pretty doomed in that scenario. Don't think it's Mt. St. Helens though...is that in Yellowstone? The one I'm talking about is in there, I think.
edit in: Watched yesterday (24/10) "Weird or what" hosted by William Shatner. Didn't watch most of last week's ep re monsters, but this week was about the end of the world. Yellowstone "super volcano" is mentioned. Entire show had mixture of sensible and surprisingly crazy opiners. It was mentioned that the ground at Yellowstone literally bulges at times, suggesting a catastrophic eruption. Did find one scientiest sensible sounding...nothing to worry about. Did get a lot of laughs - at the same comment repeated over and over again - coming from an actual scientist who saw a NASA video of the sun. Scientist reckons Earth sized space ships are crashing into the sun to go to others parts of the universe or whatever. The video footage is interesting and the scientist does make a reasonable claim for the size of the objects in the video...which NASA claim are comets are glitches...but the scientist looks to Egyptian mythology to support his view on the Earth sized space ships...thinks these are the 'sun gods' that the ancient Egyptians talked about. Here's the Wiki link for the series...this ep is one of the most recent:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_or_What%3F
re guns and Australia...surprisingly, a conservative PM over here pretty much outlawed them in the wake of Port Arthur massacre over here, I think...might have been other massacres in this time frame too...Hoddle St, Queen St (I think). Stupid Australians probably invoked America's 'right' to bear arms...yuh...who's been watching too much American tv?
"Flag football"? Briefly glanced at Wiki..."These belts vary from "Triple Threat" which the entire flag belt is removed, to "Sonic Pop" which only the flag is pulled". So, is that the player's belt which gets removed? Is there a chance that the female team playing this can end up entirely naked? If not, bored now...unless "flag" is a euphemism for something. Remember Roy & H.G., those Australian Olympics commentators? Part of Roy's schtick was to assert that any sport could be enlivened by the addition of nudity...the kids would love it. Australia has something called "touch rugby", I think. No idea what that is about. Doubt if it has catch-phrases like "Sonic pop" though. Sonic poop sounds strangely interesting though.
re sports which turn people off...I think Australian rules football is often called "No rules football" by foreigners! In soccer, I know that I've struggled with the notion of off-side. No offside in our game...hence you can have teams scoring close to 40 goals in a game when they are massacring the opposition.
I remember that the following Aussie rules player was a spectacular mark and...known for his shorts...found this just now on You Tube...may or not be your thing...pretty short, in any case (ahem):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOMdvwqKgpc
Beached Az and Theatre Brook...don't think I've seen the new cartoons. Just listened to the first few seconds of Theatre Brook...yup...does Weird Al sing Japanese?
re pop music...right about now (the funk soul brother check it out now) that's American r'n'b isn't it? It seems to be dominating the charts here and in the UK. Not really into it. Maybe as a genre, pop is now more indie pop? I like my pop straight, no chaser...e.g. the 1000% sugar of ABBA's "Honey honey" or Rihanna's "Umbrella" or Lady Gaga's "Just dance".
re extra crap in official vids...yeah, there's a Lady Gaga vid for "Telephone" I think, where it's just minute upon minute of 'drama' or whatnot. Sheesh. Just play the bloody song, lady! And I also think that they the labels cripple the sound quality on You Tubes too...not as dynamic as the illegally uploaded stuff. You Tube now makes it hard to see unofficial stuff. Years ago "Smells like teen spirit" had around 30 million views...if it still exists, it's buried waaay back. And Hanson's "Mmm bop" had a ridiculous number of views too, but they must have reviewed that upload...the official one has really poor views.
re "Man overboard"...it's #2 in my Rate Your Music list of the greatest Australian songs of all time...doesn't really get played on radio here...too indie, perhaps. Has the lyrics "anal humour" and "Your pubic hairs on my pillow". She's got a much poppier solo song which I like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxR70fpZ870
Think I heard that the singer played in people's lounges or whatnot...maybe she's fallen on hard times! There's some Aussie musos who were very successful who will write a song for you for a fee...can find the story...read it in the broadsheet, but here's the official link (if it doesn't work, click on the home page link and just look down the page a little from there):
http://www.kilbey-kennedy.com/2011/06/let-steve-kilbey-and-martin-kenn edy.html
As part of The Church, they are probably best known in the US for their use on the soundtrack to Donnie Darko:
Under the Milky Way
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-mQyRuHIuA
I prefer their earlier songs like:
Unguarded moment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osz-GQbX37o
Almost with you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWRK0Prfpv8
re Bond soundtracks...I first had a compilation, which had Bond '77 on it. Only recently gotten the soundtracks...just getting the ones with oriental flavours to them, and also the one to OHMSS...which has a precursor to Bond '77, I think. Agree with Garbage sounding retro, no doubt others too. "Live and let die" is one of my lowest rated Bond movies. Connery's "Diamonds are forever" seems a pretty premise for a movie...sounds like they based it on the song! Not really interested in songs post "All time high", I think. The last great song.
Maybe this is out of left field, but I thought maybe the Ting Tings could do a good Bond theme...loved their poppy and catchy song from a few years back:
That's not my name (this is a live version I liked...not sure if you can play it)
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/media/s2607482.htm
Official
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1c2OfAzDTI
Not sure if this will interest you...Aussie comedy act with some truths about originality in music:
Axis of awesome - Four chords
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
re snorkellers etc...in the news the other day here...American got killed by a shark here...have I mentioned that fact by a comedian, I think (perhaps English), that of the 10 most dangerous animals in the world, Australian has 9 of them? Something like that...not exactly sure verbatim...could be snakes or something.
re New Zealand...I think there would be literally dozens of American cities with a bigger population than all of New Zealand...hence their low crime rate perhaps.
re facial flex...why...just why? So...the shake weight actually exists? If I'd known that I might not have found the South Park parody funny...coz they were just basically copying it. I remember a neighbour's wife, when I was a kid, had one of those vibrating waist belts which allegedly helped you lose weight. Not sure how effective it was though...seemed bs...more of a fun ride for your blubber, it seems to me! Back to South Park though..."complaint" about their parody? Seriously? There has to be truth in comedy now? The whole gist of the episode was that the device 'inadvertedly' helped the women to help 'jerk-off' their men! Or "wank" as Australians would say.
re Bitches Brew...yeah, wouldn't expect you to listen to it all unless you wanted to. His "Kind of blue" is the one that usually gets mentioned as THE classic...I just didn't get into it that much though. Did give Dave Brubeck's Time Out 5/5 though...sort of jazz with a classical influence..."Take five" is a classic jazz piece in my view:
(version with a very rock drum solo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2In5a9LDNg
Received in the mail the other day a cd with two albums on it by US punk band Minutemen. The second cd that I've bought by them. Listened to the first album on this cd...18 songs...15 minutes total running time! They sound like Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention spliced with The Clash's Joe Strummer as far as vocals go.
re US celebrations following victory in rugby union over Russia...victory expected, I think, but America are the minnows* of the sport...which would make Russia the...? Plankton? Australia beat Wales for 3rd place...we lost to Ireland which gave us a hard road to make final...lost to New Zealand in quarters. This tiny nation is the superpower of the sport...expect them to beat France today in the final...their first world cup since the very first world cup...in New Zealand in 1987...they beat France to win that back then...not that you care! They pretty much define themselves through their rugby union success...it must kill them to have only won it twice (potentially) in all those attempts...Australia was the first nation to win it twice, I think...then South Africa did the same...now it's NZ's turn.
* Just glanced today (24/10, my time) at a newspaper's insert for the world cup...looking at Australia's group stage opponents...the US was one of them...mentions that the US is the REIGNING OLYMPIC CHAMPION! Also says that rugby is a big college sport in the US with money flowing into it...Olympics coming up...yous get to 'defend' your 'crown'! I'm tipping an inglorious failure to do so...hmm. Oh, New Zealand did get to win their 2nd world cup trophy...again beating the French at the same ground they won their last cup 27 years ago. Looks like they pipped the French at the post...they were leading, then I think the French took the lead. Might be the closest result ever and it was definitely the lowest scoring final...not that you care! I was tipping a comprehensive New Zealand win. 24 years ago the French upset us to book their place in the final against the Kiwis. Hmm...wonder when the French secret agents or whatnot blew up a Greenpeace ship in New Zealand, killing one of their environmentalists in the process. From memory, the agent didn't spend much time - if any - in gaol, and got a medal when he returned to France. Sheesh. French also not popular, perhaps during that same timeframe, for conducting atomic tests in our region.
re "Bloke" parody. Maybe he says "taddoo" once? You might get some English people saying it "ta'oo" too! He does say "footy to cricket". I got a laugh out of the bit from 2:30 where the guy is being very English behind the singer...maybe a bit Hugh Grantish?
re iPods on way out...maybe via streaming? I.e. Apple checks your cd collection and allows you to stream songs which you own from their library, over the net. Dunno. Might have legally burned some more compilation cds from a chain here but apparently they are not cd quality. On my Nevermind cd from years ago, I love that little spike in the guitar sound at the start of the song...don't hear that on the radio or on You Tube. Apparently you only notice how bad downloads are once you listen to a 'proper' music source, like a cd.
re Gruen and invade New Zealand ad...it referenced New Zealand tourism ads...can't quickly find one I am familiar with, but did find one on You Tube which uses the tagline which was parodied by the Gruen contestants - it's on the end of the ad though...just the line:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-vt3ok8Cyg
re drink driving PSAs in the US...so, the first one...the idea is to get people to call the police to admit to breaking the law? Um...how's that working out for ya? The one with the crashing glasses...does one glass represent man's inhumanity to man and the other the inability to find a parking spot in the city?
That first Australian ad seemed really great, cinematically...maybe it even changed how Hollywood depicted car crashes? When I first saw that ad, you are IN the car with those teens, then out of your peripheral vision you see a car approach and you flinch...not sure if that is the first time you got to see a crash like that from the victim's perspective. Effective in any case.
Australian ads are more subtle...note the catchphrase, which was everywhere...billboards etc:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5_n5sgcbEc
Here's an AIDS PSA from here...subtle...might have done well in the US, I think...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U219eUIZ7Qo
re your seatbelt comment...not sure if Australia was the first or one of the first nations to introduce mandatory seat belts...they do save lives and prevent injuries or more serious injuries. Are they mandatory in all US states?
Just by the by, I had a problem with a free cd I got in a Prog magazine (which I rarely buy)...emailed the mag and they replaced the cd and gave me the current edition of the mag which isn't out here yet...I really dug this song...not sure if the singer is American or just resides there:
Phaedra - Honeydewed autumn
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhcnbs_phaedra-honeydewed-autumn_musi c
P.S.
Since I posted up a couple of Australian comedy tracks, I thought I might mention two more...doubt if the first has much cross-over appeal, but I'm interested in your thoughts on it...think this single still has the record for being the highest selling single in Australia of all time...not sure if that is just for Australian releases, or all comers...pretty much all puns. Not sure if the comic created some puns, but I do remember hearing the same joke used in the US sit-com "Mad about you" and perhaps Seinfeld too...the one about a particular Australian parrot...bit of a doulbe entendre:
Austen Tayshus - Australiana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im6VEJKd1aA
Does this track ring any bells for you...sorta...kinda?
Lucky Starr - I've been everywhere
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeadSspZDzM
P.S. I think we talked about a story some months back about a guy who was eaten by his pet insects or something (trust me on this!)...there was a follow up story on this on Media Watch the other day...the 'journalist' has form, so to speak...it's a bit of a sad commentary on how 'news' is created...the following link has a transcript and video, if you can view it instead:
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3346990.htm
P.P.S. Recently bought a metal magazine which had a free cd of thrash metal music...don't normally buy these mags and not a big fan of thrash, but it had a list of the 50 great thrash albums of all time, so I thought I'd check it out...I'm a sucker for these kinds of lists. Particularly liked one song on the album...
Tornado - Hate worldwide
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2518hS6GSU
The singer sounds kind of like The Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten, if you are familiar with them.
Also took a punt buying Sepultura's Roots cd...they're a Brazilian thrash metal band in they apparently had Brazilian musical elements on this album, which sounded interesting to me...so I'm gonna check it out in the next few days.
Word count: 2,836 (for now!)
You can't create a post without a body
Re Possum Pie, Beetroot Beer and Lamingtons- the title reminds me of what is called ‘redneck’ cooking over here. Other items on a redneck menu would include moonshine, squirrel, raccoon, and any form of road kill that has not started to turn. The few recipes that were in the preview seemed a combination or interesting and unique (cauliflower pancakes are not something I could ever imagine eating). The scary thing is the lack of instructions. While I enjoy baking, and sometimes other types of cooking, I can wind up with problems following a recipe with full instructions, not having measurements, cook times, or temperatures tends to be off putting.
Re comedy festival- at university, think one night each week (may have been Wednesday) in the Union was given over to anyone that wanted to try their hand at stand up and anyone could go listen to it. Think it was for free; can’t imagine how they would have closed the area off to charge for it, and I don’t think the area it was held in is allowed to be closed off (at the very least Starbucks would have been ticked off to no end it the area had been closed off). Every now and again a comedian would play at a university venue, and the tickets were always high (one time the creator/one of the main voice actors for Family Guy came and think it was $45 to go listen to him) but I don’t remember any festivals there. Not aware of any festivals that go on in the city I’m in now. Sometimes a big name comes through, so maybe the have an intro person, but no festivals. The city I’m in is one of those places that isn’t really recognized by the people on tour a lot of the times. A bigger city, more well known city is about a 5 hour drive east of here, and they’d more likely have a festival. Though, the city I’m in did put in a new arena a few years ago, and supposedly the music groups that have come through there say it is one of the nicest in the country. Maybe we’ll start seeing more as the reputation spreads.
Re pit bulls- bit of a psychotic breed, and tend to be used mostly for fighting rings or crazy guard dogs. Lot of places in the US have bans in place against them, i.e. subdivision by-laws, apartment complexes, certain smaller cities sometimes an ordnance etc. I understand that there are some pit bulls that are okay, but in general the way the breed has been bred over the years they seem to be more unstable than a lot of the others out there.
As for people, especially kids, getting hurt by dogs, the stories tend to annoy and piss me off. A lot of the times it is reported that a calm family pet just snapped and went after the kid, or some neighbors dog randomly bit someone, and there is almost always more to the story than that. Most dogs do not snap for no reason, and in a lot of cases if the family members had been watching the kid, nothing would have happened. There is one instance I remember where a family had had a great dane for several years who was a good dog, not aggressive, etc, etc. One day the dog was sleeping and I think it was a grandkid that came over who was a toddler. While the dog was sleeping the kid went and tackled it, the dog woke up startled, and bit the kid. Instead of looking at the incident as the kid attacking a sleeping dog, the story was spun as the dog attacking the kid and it was killed. You do not tackle sleeping dogs. If you have to wake them up, you do it gently. If anyone had bothered watching the kid, the kid would not have gotten bitten. Another more recent incident had a baby crawling around on the floor near a dog’s food dish with a dog that had a food guarding instinct. Again, keep the baby away from the dish and there is no issue. And food guarding isn’t one of those traits that is hard to miss. If the owners didn’t know about the food guarding it would only be because they paid as much attention to the dog as they obviously did to the kid. That dog got lucky, though, and was just kicked out of the house instead of being put down.
Re federal laws- early in Obama’s administration he pushed through a health care bill (that a majority of the country still does not want, and doesn’t go into affect until 2014, and is already having bits and pieces chipped away) that fit his party ideas. He did manage to get some support from a couple republicans, most of whom it was there last term they’d be serving anyway. More recently there was some economic thing that they were arguing about, but that didn’t go anywhere, but neither the Democrats or the Republicans liked it. Ever since the health care thing was shoved through, the political bs has just been getting worse and worse. They’re all too caught up in the political games, blaming one another, other bs, and campaigning to do anything useful. It won’t be until after the next election that we’ll see anything substantial out of Washington I’d wager. (Well, as substantial as anything that ever comes out of Washington other than manure.)
Re earthquakes- There was a decent sized one in the 80s, I think the program said, when they realized they needed to take precautions. The BIG one, like the whole-state-falls-into-the-ocean-big, is apparently on the verge of happening anytime, or so certain scientists say. I don’t blame the guys for wanting recognition for the work they do, but sometimes I wonder how much of it is just for show and attention. Overall people still don’t really know how to predict earthquakes, so how can they say for sure that a place is over due for one?
Side note to that, last week there were three different quakes about 360mi. southwest of here strong enough that they could be felt where I live. Apparently there was some bad building damage at the epicenters. Here felt some shaking, but nothing bad. First one happened about 2:30 in the morning and my first thought was that I obviously needed to go to bed since I was hallucinating the bed vibrating. Then I saw the water in my water bottle shaking and realized it probably wasn’t me.
Re volcanoes- Mt. Saint Helen’s is in Washington state. Looked online and from what I can tell, the volcano at Yellowstone is just called Yellowstone volcano, or supervolcano, depending on who you look at. Like the show, it depends who you believe as to it blowing or not, or when. Saw the park’s official website, and they are very careful on there to make it sound like the volcano isn’t going to bother going off again until basically the end of time. It is one of those things that I don’t worry too much about because when it does happen, pretty much the only thing you can do is get the h*ll out of it’s way and deal with the aftermath. Saw some maps of the ash bed (how far the ash from the explosions are carried) from when it blew last time, and it seems like the bread basket of the US would be out of commission until the ash settled. Though after that it should be fairly productive. Have heard volcanic ash works well to grow things.
Re Weird of What- seems like an interesting show, though some of the stories wikipedia mentions are ons that have been done over, and over, and over. Don’t know about using the sun as a universe transporter, though. That seems a bit far-fetched.
Re flag football- I imagine somewhere there is a version of flag football where players can end up naked, but typically the flag belt is some kind of material (the ones in school where some kind of nylon that had metal loops the end of the rope went through to adjust the size) and two flags. The flags are two pieces Velcroed together. The end not attached to the belt is pulled off to count as a ‘tackle.’ Never heard of the whole belt coming off before, but guess they’re out there.
Found out recently there is a full contact version of American football called lingerie football, played by women in nothing but pads and underwear as skimpy as they can get and still have it hold up during the game. Found it funny that said some of the fans are just watching because they like football. I don’t buy that. The crowd is primarily men, even more so than regular football. The reason they’re watching is because good-looking women are running around in sexy, skimpy underwear. They don’t care what else may be going on. You can even buy game worn uniforms from the league. I really don’t want to know what happens to some of those. You’ll probably appreciate this more. Here’s the main website.
http://www.lflus.com/
re Aussie player’s shorts- I prefer things to be left more to the imagination than that. Of the personal opinion that speedos should be outlawed worldwide; those shorts could go with them.
Re Theatre Brook/Weird Al- to the best of my knowledge the only language Weird Al sings is English, and still don’t really hear the similarities.
Re pop music- you mentioned funk soul brother. Do you mean the song by Fat Boy Slim or is there a new group or recording out? It is topping charts now??? God think that song is from the late 90s. Used to be a commercial on the WB station over here when they’d started running Frasier reruns that they parody the song.
Re ‘It’s Only the Beginning’- reminds me of some of the country songs that crossed into the pop arena in the late 90s early 00s, both in sound and lyrics content.
Re song writing- never seen Donnie Darko, except maybe a few minutes flipping through channels. Guess if you wanted to do something for a real special occasion, or maybe if a significant other really screwed up getting a song written might be a way to make up. Just could see $1000 going to something better. Also noticed that while you get the lyrics, it doesn’t say anything about the actual music sheets.
Re Axis of Awesome- I like these guys, though I think Benny has the best voice out of the group. Fully understand what they mean about the chords being the same. Don’t know how long ago they wrote that bit but I remember I think in high school someone in orchestra bringing that point up, though they didn’t prove it by playing a number of songs. Liked how well they transitioned from song to song as well. (Complaint to whoever did set design for the show: don’t use a see-through screen if people are going to be moving around behind it while there is an act performing in front of it, especially if it is being filmed for tv. It is highly distracting.) I do know there are a couple songs on the radio where I could swear it is one song listening to the intro or bridge and then it turns out it is another one. Also, the song by Madonna, ‘Hung Up,’ has pretty much an identical intro as ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)’ by ABBA. On the version done by ABBA, the music is a little bit slower, but if you listen to the version from the ‘Mamma Mia’ movie soundtrack, it is identical.
Hung Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDwb9jOVRtU&ob=av2e
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! - ABBA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RU_954raIM
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! – Mamma Mia movie cast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77AeDakvJdE
re deadly animals- have heard the 9 out of 10 thing before. Wanna say it is a mix of spiders and snakes mostly. Think if was the Mamba or King Cobra was the only one Australia didn’t have. Can’t remember if they’re both on the list or not. There does tend to be the view of Australia that it seems like a nice place, just you have to watch your every step because there is always something around that can easily kill you, even in your own backyard.
Re shake weight- yes, it exists, but it doesn’t spit at you at the end. They even has a website for direct ordering.
For Girls…..
https://www.shakeweight.com/
….and Guys!
https://www.shakeweightformen.com/
Just see how ripped these guys get from using this little thing! Giant bulging biceps from something they can probably snap in half. (Guess I was wrong, though, about it shaking itself. On all the adverts I’d seen before it looked like the models were just holding on while the device moved. Says here it is manual.)
I also remember the vibrating belts you’re talking about. Have seen a few at some auctions I gone with may parents to. No, they do nothing for you except jiggle the fat, maybe relax some muscles *shrug* Can’t imagine anyone believing it would actually work. Though if things like the shake weight are still being sold I guess people are still believing in the crazy gizmos.
As for the complaint, it is more of a consistency issue. In the store there are women that look like they are just holding it and it is moving on its own, and it looks that way on the commercial playing in the background. When she gets home it is very obvious she is manipulating it. I watch a lot of animated programs, so animated inconsistencies just tend to bug me. Remember one from an old Scooby Doo episode where they are in the van and the colouring on Daphne’s neck turns the same colour as the background for several seconds. Or from another show that used to be on in the intro two characters jump up, but one character floats in mid-air until the other one lands. Besides, the parodies I’ve seen South Park do in the past tend to pay attention to certain details, since the complete undertone of the show is to make fun of or parody pretty much anything and everything.
Re Take five- I think I’ve heard parts of this used in commercials before, the ones that try to make the cars look expensive, classy, and luxurious, especially around the holidays. As for the song itself, like it as background music, don’t know if I’d want to go to a concert where this was all they played, though.
Re Minutement cd- 18 songs for total of 15 minutes= rip off. A song under a minute now and again is okay, but should not be a standard practice.
Re rugby in college- it is a fairly common sport on college campuses, with many colleges/unis having both men’s and women’s teams, but the aren’t really sponsored by the school. They’re club sports and tend to play mostly against other people from the school, at least from what I know of it. Every now and again there is a college rugby game on a sport network of two official college teams. Don’t know if it is more popular or what but lacrosse tends to be shown more. Have never understood how that happens.
Re French- when are the French ever popular?
re Bloke- @2:30 guy in the background strikes more gay than anything else. Like someone so deep in denial to himself but just completely obvious to everyone around him.
Re New Zealand ad- I like how there are only 3 seconds of a city pictured, as the ad was finished and someone pointed out that they needed to show that there were in fact cities in the country and not just a bunch of open spaces. For the Gruen ad that uses the slogan, isn’t there some theory that says you should use your enemies own words and what not to strengthen your forces against them, even if it isn’t going to be much of a fight?
Re drunk driving ads- the first one was my mistake. Didn’t read all the text at the end, and the title marked it as a PSA. In actuality it seems to be an ad for a law office that deals primarily with traffic violations, i.e. going into court for you and trying to convince the judge that you weren’t really drunk, speeding, high, etc, etc, or at the very least to argue that it shouldn’t be on your driving record. Like how in the animation though it looks like the can the guy threw out the window almost hits the cop car. That if a fantastic way to piss cops off and make sure they treat you with as little respect as they can get away with.
Re idiot PSA- I like that one. Over here you can’t get away with calling people names like that, even though they ARE idiots. Everything must be sugar-coated, as with the other PSAs.
Re AIDS PSA- it might work in the US. For a PSA focused on death, I kind of like it. Subtle with a hint of in your face with an interesting setting and concept. Towards the end the voice over sounds a bit robotic, especially when he says condom.
Re seatbelts- I know they save lives, but if you’re going to put a car out there to say a seat belt is going to save you life, it needs to be car that looks like the belt would have made a difference, and not one where the driver’s side is completely caved in with the top folded down. Basically they’d take a typical four-door sedan that looks like a full dump truck or semi-truck (lorry?) t-boned it. Seat belt doesn’t do you any good when the bumper from the truck hitting you probably would have removed your head at the neck line anyway. Anyone sitting on the driver side of that car most likely didn’t even make it to the hospital. There was another one where the trunk and back wheels were off the ground and the back seat was starting to fold into it self. Again, don’t think a belt would do the people in back much good other than to get in the way when responders are trying to get them out.
Have been in two different accidents, both of which the car I was in was hit from behind, one I was a passenger and one the driver. In both I would have smashed my head against the windshield if I hadn’t had a belt on. No serious injuries, but probably would’ve had a gash on the forehead and some level of concussion. Suppose the one where I was the driver could have been worse since I would have been thrown into the wheel first and chest damage would have been possible.
I’m pretty sure that seat belts are mandatory in every states, but I’m not entirely sure. It’s mandated at the state level, but I think the federal government holds some kind of funds over the states’ heads and says that the only way to get the money is to have mandatory seat belt laws. ‘Course that doesn’t mean people pay attention, and a person is only fined for not wearing a belt if a cop stops them for something else and they happen not to have a belt on.
Re Phaedra- interesting song. Very haunting. Took a look to see if I could find where they were from, and everything points to Norway. The members are listed on their facebook page and there is only one of them I’d even consider trying to pronounce.
Re Austen Tayshus, Australiana- could follow some of it, but other bits got lost in translation, even when reading along with what the poster had underneath.
Re I”ve Been Everywhere- I like this version more than the one I’m more familiar with and have to really give props to the singer for not getting tongue tied on all saying all of those place names that quickly.
Re fake news- sad that even in today’s world where people are so well connected the papers are getting so much wrong. On the other hand, assuming it was just a bid for views, they at least have a somewhat creative mind behind the fabricated stories. Guess it doesn’t shock me that much since I’ve never really trusted jurnos. Everyone just wants to be the first to report a horrific story and worry about the facts later, or just never bother to report the facts that do come to light because the story becomes boring. About a month or two ago there was a 10/11 month old that disappeared from her house in the middle of the night (supposedly), and the news jumped all over the story. It became a circus of the cops are searching this, no this, they suspect the mom, she’s going to be arrested, wait, no she isn’t they just want to talk, and so on and so forth. On the third day the parents clammed up and stopped talking to anybody, even police. Then their story changed a couple times as to what they were doing that night. Point is that even in the city it happened in, everyone wanted to be the first to ‘update’ people on the story that no one got verification before reporting it. And at the end of each ‘update’ they have to tack on the disclaimer that cops won’t verify anything. Well, no one pays attention to that and just assumes the press is accurate in its reporting.
It’s like I tell my parents: when a major disaster happens the news producers are all jumping for joy because everyone will be watching the news stations, and then there are the people who will jump in-between all the different ones trying to get the real story. Then we have the Weather Channel over here, who always delights when there are large weather systems moving through some part of the country (mostly they get excited about storms in the south or out east) because that gives them several days or longer worth of news and many stations will try to get their footage since their photographers tend to be more experienced in such situations, thus getting better film. Normal stations also delight in these to a certain degree, especially when death and extended power outages occur, but the Weather Channel is just a tad bit happier since this is the only thing really relevant to their station.
Re Tornado Hate Worldwide- Surprisingly, I like this, and it will be several days before I can get the chorus out of my head. Any idea if this song is supposed to be them being against all the hate in the world, and thus wanting to get rid of the haters/murders, which is what I’m getting from the lyrics, or am I reading it wrong. Here’s what I found for the lyrics:
http://www.reverbnation.com/artist/song_details/8269337
You mentioned Sepultura’s Root cd last time. How did the Brazilian thrash metal turn out?
Word count: 3904
Hmm...have you set a record for longest post?
re redneck cooking...I'm not sure if that Australian cookbook was analogous to redneck cooking...maybe it is. Sort of similar thing can by found You Tubing "The bush tucker man"...it was a series here in Australia from some years back...sort of survivalist food...think the guy teaches or tought are army how to survive on the land, so to speak. Maybe that's where I saw a guy eating witchety grubs, I think that they are called. Forget what the taste was described as...probably wrong here, but maybe it was described as tasting like scrambled egg...pretty sure that's wrong! In Australia, our pioneers would sometimes starve to death whilst the Aboriginals had lived on the land for millenia. Did see one docu about how in Africa, there is a lake which has billions of flies or however many...the locals eat them. You mentioned cauliflower pancakes...I've only gotten into eating stuff like cauliflower and broccoli in recent years...as a kid the thought horrified me...I'm pretty sure I am in unique in that! Anyway, think this year I tried "burnt fig" and something something icecream. It wasn't bad, actually. Not chunky, which probably suited me, and had some ribbons of some kind of sweet sauce or whatever.
re comedians at uni...think that that happens here too...probably around the comedy festival time...pretty sure that the prices are at uni student levels...and some well relatively known names appear...probably as part of a 'compilation' type gig.
re pit bulls...another story in the paper yesterday (17/11...let's see the lag before I post this!)...wasn't a pit bull though...some kind of terrier (staff?) , I think...bit a baby's face, I think. Reports about whether the new laws here should cover more breeds.
Years ago there was a Brit tv show with a dog trainer called Barbara Woodhouse...had a famous catch-phrase..."Walkies!". On the radio here there is a vet who, when I briefly hear him, often tells people to treat their pets as animals, not humans. Have heard of cats sitting on babies' faces and suffocating them...maybe not malicious...just for the warm breath, perhaps. I'm sure that some kids can be real brats and do something unpleasant to a dog which upsets them. Another way the owners can perhaps fail their children is by not instilling a sense of hierarchy to the dog...the dog is beneath all the humans in the family. That radio vet mentions this, I think...you can't have a dog thinking it is the dominant animal in the house and that when it wants to sit on your bed, you have to get off!
re Obama and health care etc...no expert on this, but from what I've seen of the US media, it's a case of the right wing shock wing shock jock types characterising these policies as socialist or communist etc. Australia has Medicare and that's good for the poor. In the US, from what I hear, if you don't have a job and you get sick, you can kiss your financial future goodbye. It actually seems an unjust system you have in the US...and I'm pretty sure some financially responsible Western countries have similar systems in place. In the US it seems a case of "The devil take the hindmost". Just wildly guessing here, but maybe both parties are really beholden to the corporations, so Obama, whilst having a chance to institute social justice policies, sought to get bipartisan support...as a way of appeasing the corporations...he looks like he is trying to do the right thing by ordinary Americans, but his inaction serves the interests of whoever...health insurers etc.
One thing I have heard about Americans is how they support unfair tax regimes which reward the rich...i.e. they support it because they have the delusion that 'one of these days' they may be able to rort the system too. In other words, there is the myth that anyone can become rich in America...perhaps there is a religious element to this belief too...'the prosperity gospel' and all that...you are rich because God loves you or some bs. Did read the other day that a business chief who is fighting our government's attempt to impose a mining tax hasn't actually paid tax yet on his business! He gets concessions or whatnot. Big bad government. Yuh.
re Yellowstone supervolcano...my impression was that if thing blew, we'd pretty much have a nuclear winter type scenario...am I sounding like Cliff from Cheers? In other words, global warming wouldn't be a problem...we'd be freezing...and your neighbours would eventually start looking tasty...tastier than that year's supply of cauliflower pancakes you thought you'd never need.
Edit in...just saw this cartoon in today's paper, I think (22/11...we get them later than yous do, by the looks of it):
http://www.arcamax.com/newspics/28/2857/285795.gif
re Weird Or What...it's kind of like "In search of...", with Leonard Nimoy...except with William Shatner...is that weird...or what? Might have to check out Bill's 'music'...think I heard he did some Metallica covers. He's very cheesy in that show anyway.
re lingerie football...interesting quote "The lfl is the fastest growing pro sports league in the nation". I have no idea who Rick Chandler is...the person quoted.
re you hating speedos...that's probably because America doesn't have someone who can really show them off properly...like Australia's next conservative prime minister, Tony Abbott:
http://t1.gstatic.com/imag...8BUvXDad-wi29nA
re Funk soul brother - yeah, had in mind Fatboy Slim song. Not a favourite song of mine...I love "Right here, right now", which also is used in ads.
re Axis of awesome...on this site I did come across a similar You Tube...think he covers some of the same songs too...still good though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
Apparently in Penn State...is that a uni...or a prison? Can't say that I noticed anyone in the background of that clip by Axis Of Awesome. Do you always notice stuff you aren't meant to? Like watches in movies worn by characters who are from centuries ago and stuff? Oh...remember watching Doctor Who years ago...they had a sequence of a plane landing centuries ago or something...that's not the problem...the problem was the place was meant to be deserted but you could see a city in the heat haze...they must have used stock footage or something and didn't have the time or inclination to check for such stuff.
re ABBA v Madonna...yeah, I'm aware of that. I'd say she "sampled" that music...if she did slow it down, then that's different to sampling, but I'd be surprised if she tried to take credit for that melody. Not a big fan of that ABBA song...apart from that opening bit! Less of a fan of that Madonna song...she's taken the best part of the song...and made another mediocre song.
Speaking of rip offs...when I listened to one of my 60s compilations, this tune immediately struck me...no need to listen to all of it...just the bass notes:
The Blue Magoos - (We ain't got) nothin' yet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKEtyFEAmXM
Did you listen very hard? Did the tune come to you at last? This is what I was reminded of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZpHl1x6JNc
Speaking of ripping off...that's been in the news here the past year or so. Australian band Men At Work were successfully sued for a melody they used in their hit song "Down under". I watch a tv music quiz/game show called "Spicks and specks" and they had a question about which well known song is used in that Men At Work hit. After that aired, the copyright holders heard about it and sued the band. The connection had never occurred to me. Personally, I think it was a stupid decision by the court. There must be way more egregious instances of ripping off a song than that! Browsing a music mag in the newsagent today, I did see Sting say that he doesn't feel that you can claim to compose pop songs...you merely collate stuff.
re deadly animals and Australia...think I remembered the joke now...along the lines of Australia having 9/10 of the most dangerous snakes in the world...hang on...of the 9 most dangerous snakes in the world, Australia has all of them!
As for Australia being a dangerous place...some of the comedians here also joke about international back packers...dangerous for them too...serial killers...but I doubt if any one of ours would make a top ten list of the most dangerous serial killers. Never seen the Australian movie "Wolf Creek", but that is sort of based on one, I think...not a factual movie, I don't think, but had similar elements to the story.
re shakeweight for men...got a message saying the site was not trustworthy or something...no probs for female site. Would think that the male version would look particularly gay if one was to use it! Perhaps less so than referring to oneself as "one"?
re crazy gizmos...you hear about those pyramid structures that you're supposed to sit under for...(?) and how placing a blunt razor under them sharpens them or whatnot? I was trying to find an Australian ad for a health fund, I think, which allowed for alternative medicine. Couldn't find it...made me laugh...it's a person lying on a rub down board and this Euro looking guy is chanting something foreign in a deep voice and slapping two fish together...he sure looks like he must know what he's doing!
re animation inconsistencies...well, that answers my earlier question re whether you notice things you aren't supposed to! They can be funny at times, e.g. in video games. Playing Pro Evolution Soccer 3, you could watch replays sometimes and you'd get odd scenarios...like one player's head disappearing inside the backside of another player after a tackle...you never know...it COULD happen!
re Take Five - to me it is a classic and anything but background music. Most jazz I hear strikes me as being background kind of music...apart from that piece. "Kind of blue" is background music for me...it's not memorable, but I know it when I hear it, if that makes sense.
re Minutemen 18 songs under 15 minutes...they had two albums on the one cd...another 18 songs on top of that, and that ran for around 29 minutes...so, 36 songs for around 40 odd minutes. Only other band I know with such consistently short songs is post-punk band Wire. I know Metallica have a few albums where the songs go on for ages...as does the album. Ten songs for around 70 minutes of play time. Gets a bit much, especially if you're not enjoying it that much.
re rugby and US being defending Olympic champion...the sport is coming back to the Olympics...I think the US is defending Gold from early last century! Can't imagine how they won it back then, but it's inconceivable they would win a medal this time around. Inconceivable to me that baseball is an Olympic sport...suggests US network money for broadcast rights is influencing sport selection. Would have classed basketball the same too, but it seems to be now a more genuine world sport...not sure if that was always the case.
btb, watched Moneyball recently...about baseball! Reviewed it on this site...there's a link to this in my profile page here. You care about baseball? I think that fans of test cricket here deride the one day form of the game (yes, test cricket goes on for days and days!). The new form of the short game, Twenty20, is probably even more like baseball.
re gay looking guy in Bloke song...maybe...he just seemed to be doing an amusing impression of an Englishman...maybe he's gay too, but that's not what I was finding amusing...he does seem to change his demeanour behind the guy's back, which is what I was alluding too...he's playing a kind of toffee Englishman or something.
Speaking of gay...I was watching Gruen Planet the other night and they showed an old ad by Kiwi actor Russell Crowe...for the Seventh Day Adventists...can't seem to find that ad online...if you're prepared to wade through the entire episode, it would be in here somewhere...near the end, I think:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruenplanet/pages/s3367888.htm
There segments on the worst products of all time are amusing too...check out the winner, for one! The Uro Club...it's one of the links in the link below...or how do you feel about the Boyfriend Body Pillow?:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruenplanet/web_extras.htm
Found the last fake ad amusing...the first one re banning christmas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dx6FqFSeek
re PSAs...the AIDS ad might have been a wee bit hysterical...they're trying to make it everyone's problem, not just a gay problem...have seen news reports or whatnot saying it was mostly a gay problem. Did try looking for another AIDS ad, but I couldn't find it. It was along the lines of that by sleeping with somebody, you are actually sleeping with everyone they have ever slept with...so you get to see dozens of beds later, and I think one or all of the beds are like a bed of nails...but with syringes...as in they could have been a drug user sharing needles. As Corporal Jones was wont to say "DON'T PANIC!!".
re seat belt utility...yeah, against a semi, your average sedan's seat belts aren't going to help you much. Not a reason to not wear them though. A related issue...I think a lot of suburban mums like the 4WDs...they think they're safer...higher up off the ground. Where I live you hear them referred to as "Toorak tractors"...a US version of this would be something like a Beverly Hills tractor. I.e. they're cars for the man on the land...being driven by suburban mums going to the shop. Over here they often have bull bars. The problem is the safety features of many sedans come unstuck against these kind of vehicles...you could have a side airbag to protect your head...which works fine for other sedans...but against a 4WD, the point of impact is so much higher that you're a goner if you get struck...or a vegetable.
Glad to hear that you weren't seriously injured in your car accidents. It's a regular thing on the news, especially on one of our frequent long weekends...an entire family wiped out, or generations from a family...recently some teenage kids died, I think...the usual story...girl wanted to get out of the car because the guy wasn't fit to drive.
re Phaedra song...the info that I found on her mentioned that she was based in the US...the US is multi-cultural, so I thought maybe she could have been an American. Think the cd I bought indicates that it was made in Norway. Relaxing music in any case...pretty bleak, lyrically, from memory...listening to it again tonight, I think. Hot bath kind of music, I call it. No other song grabbed as much as that.
Maybe Phaedra's music is vaguely Enya like...I find this Enya song sublime...
Caribbean blue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl8iYAo90pE
She seems to get hate from some people...I can't fault that song.
re Australiana...I'm assuming some of the issues were word based...as in if you don't know the words, you won't get the pun...it is all pun based...some groaners in there! The joke I've heard on Seinfeld and Mad About You is the one with the word "cockatoo". It's a kind of parrot here...obvious sexual connotations when used as a pun.
re I've been everywhere...you heard the Johnny Cash version first? I'm assuming he did the US version. Apparently there are multiple versions from different countries...the Kiwi one would work well, you'd think...and the US one surprisingly works well too...you have some pretty weird place names too! Just btb, I heard recently that Johnny Cash had a rejected James Bond movie theme...for Thunderball, I believe...if you're interested I can confirm the song...there is a You Tube for it!
re story in US over 10/11 month old that disappeared...there was a related story over here...a girl who was subject to an extortion bid...she had bike chain around her neck which was supposedly a bomb. Recently the man responsible for putting it there was arrested in the US...made news there where it happened. Anyway, the media were outside the girl's house everyday filming her and asking her when things are going to go back to normal...they followed her to sports practices...saying she was getting back to normal. Think they were at her house for at least a week...asking in a concerned way when things would be back to normal for her...think that Media Watch covered this story over here, and the satirical show The Hamster Wheel...can't find a clip, but if you have no life, you may want to check out the ep in question for that bit...they do some pointed bits...showing how one news programme did a cutaway shot of an interview with the girl's father...the reason why came later...they found an unedited segment on another news programme...where the dad says things can get to normal once the media go away! Maybe if you're lucky the video is region blocked (personally, I'm not enjoying this current series of theirs a great deal...I enjoyed earlier shows of theirs like CNNNNN...think that's the one with the US vox pops...where that cute girl is asked to name a country beginning with "U" and couldn't...someone did say "Utopia", which doesn't actually exist)! Don't mind their regular segment on news events analysed with the help of You Tubes featuring cats...oh, found one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yFcoAYkKME
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/hamsterwheel/pages/s3368069.htm
Just returned to this reply and found out schoolgirl's name I mentioned earlier...here's the Media Watch story on her (video or transcript available):
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3293989.htm
Was looking on You Tube for the Hamster Wheel and Madeleine Pulver but got no hits for it...tried their own website...they had a joke pop-up ad, which covered nearly the whole screen...with no close button...and asking whether you hate those!
You mentioned the Weather Chanel...I think that the Hamster Wheel did a segment on weather presenters this episode or the previous one...just how they've steadily become 'wackier' over the years...oh, found it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxmer6W-ZQ0
re Hate Worldwide song...you amuse me...you're singing "I deny that I hate mankind but I won't deny that murder's on my mind"? Getting funny looks from your family? Cops in the mall trying to sneak up on you and 'cuff you? From what I can make out, I think they sound in favour of violence...there's a line about scum not deserving to live. Some of the questionable lyrics from that song turn out to be lines from a Living Colour song. When I watched this docu on heavy metal years ago, Metal: A headbanger's journey - good film - there was a segment on Scandanavian black metal. One of the artists burned a church down and murdered someone...heard that they are out now and also have a new album out too. That's someone who might just believe their own shytte...don't realise that they're just entertainers. Anyway, with Tornado, I just get the feeling that are projecting an attitude...one of their songs on that album is about paedophile priests...maybe they get the tone of that song wrong...they use news sound bites from the US...real case, I presume.
re Brazilian thrash metal...what I heard was midtempo, heavy and with screamo singing. It does have some native singing or chanting on it sometimes too. Didn't mind it...I'd call it groove metal...which is lucky, as Wiki calls it that too. I'm guessing that you may like two non-thrash songs on that album..mainly the first...as for the second, it gets annoying towards the end with one instrument...
Sepultura - Jasco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oc6kumal3E
Sepultura - Canyon jam (bonus or hidden track) *** It's only a sample...30 seconds...
http://music.ovi.com/sg/en...on-Jam/15147326
Might include a link later for another guitar piece which you make like off of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Trilogy album...hell, found it without looking at notes I left at home:
From the beginning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEZK_B72-rM
Since we've talked education in that past, I thought I'd mention this article...I mention paragraphs 11-12, 17, 21 and the last one in my notes, which refers to the hard copy...not sure if it is a direct match here though:
http://www.theage.com.au/n...1029-1mosn.html
Have I linked to these comedy sketches before? I was looking for Rowan Atkinson's "Bob" schtick, and got sidetracked onto this piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJKyztJJVdU
Here's a poor quality guest appearance on a car show, where some of the "Bob" stuff is gotten into...there's a good quality clip on the side, but it's full length:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkT6KJytilI
Back to the Hamster Wheel...might have been when they were CNNNNN...no, as The Chaser, but I liked this version of a death metal song that they did...I really don't get anything out of the very little that I've heard of death metal...they seem to give it the respect that it deserves...at least with the original versions you don't understand what the lyrics are saying! I.e. you need a strong stomach to hear this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc-V3NYckOI
re Only the beginning - that song didn't really strike me as being country like...I'd be surprised if I'd like country equivalents that much, as I'm not a big country music fan...but watching a docu series on country music - for some inexplicable reason! - I did make a note of Alison Krauss' voice...very good. Might have to check her out, or her album with Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant. Started watching Martin Scorcese's - I think - docu series on jazz, but it was too worthy and I only watched part of the first episode...the country music series was more engaging.
re AIDS PSA here...I just mentioned it because I've never really thought of ten pin bowling as a mainstream 'sport' here...so just mentioned tongue in cheek it might have gone down well in the US..."Hey, if Death is bowling, he can't be all bad, yeah?".
Edit in: recently I've relistened to Metallica's debut album, "Kill 'em all" and...quite liked it. This was after only listening to it once years ago and thinking "Life's too short" and getting a refund or an exchange for it. Had bought Slayer's "Reign in blood" cd along with album and...I also ditched that album too. But checking out Slayer's debut (I'm listening to the 'founders' of thrash at the moment) and their debut was nowhere near as fast as R.I.B. Both albums seem more like hard rock to me than what it seemed earlier...K.E.A. as a "racket" and R.I.B. as "insanely fast and exhausting to listen to". Their debuts seem merely to be uptempo hard rock now. I'm finding that relistening to albums I didn't like before has seen their ratings rise with me. Inflation!
Word count: 3,713
edit in...just found a clip I was looking for in relation to something else...I like this credit card sequence, around 10 seconds in...the rest of the clip is funny though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3VlSwUoIO0
You can't create a post without a body
Re post record- think so. Keep waiting for the one that breaks 4000 words.
Re redneck cooking- anything using a opossum over automatically qualifies as redneck. As for living off the land and pioneers, the settlers over here had the same issue when they first got here while the Native Americans had it figured out a long time ago. Agree that tastes evolve as a person gets older. Couple years ago finally tried mushrooms and now a favourite food – though I’m not quite sure if they have any actual nutritional value. In Africa and Asia certain bugs are considered a delicacy. Don’t know if I could ever force myself to eat a bug.
Re pets- don’t really know anything about cats. I’ve only been around two: one was only for a few months after I was born (still here so no face sitting issue) and the other is my grandmother’s cat who pretty much hates everyone, though it is my understanding that it has mellowed out in the past couple of years.
With dogs, I think it depends on the animal. Some dogs get out of control when they’re allowed on the furniture, and the next thing you know it is growling, snapping, etc. Also think there is a factor of how much time is spent working with the dog. Our dog listened okay, but then she was hardly worked with. She’d listen to me fairly well (being the one that did train her) but was iffy about listening to my parents, especially on a leash. Was always ridiculous when we went on vacation my dad would have to take charge of the dog if we were walking around anywhere, ie hiking trails, etc., and the only time the dog would listen to him was when she start to get tired. Try to take the leash from him and he’d get pissed off. The dogs that people have a lot of problems with over here are the little toy dogs, especially Chihuahuas because they see them as these tiny, defenseless dogs, and treat them more like a baby than anything else, and when the dog refuses to let anyone sit on the sofa except for ‘mommy’ they think it is funny because the dog is so little.
Re Obama health care- it isn’t a matter of it being socialist or communist, it is a matter of people not wanting their insurance rates to go up. In the US if you don’t have a job (and haven’t had one for awhile or never did), odds are you are on welfare and Medicaid. Medicaid pays the hospital bills. The odds are higher if you get really sick, have a job and average income, to kiss your financial future goodbye because insurance will only pay so much, and usually it isn’t enough or flat out won’t cover it. Then there is coming from the other side where people start out okay, get too sick to work, lose their job, and then have problems getting things taken care of during the in between period of still too much money to qualify for help, but having to really scrimp just to put food on the table and try to stay under their roof.
Re tax system- the unfair tax regimes went in because the rich control the government and have for the entire existence of the United States. The people that support them are ones getting their pockets lined, are rich themselves, or don’t like what new tax code is being purposed. I don’t think many people actually believe that one day they will get lucky and strike it rich, especially rich enough to get into the tax brackets that it really makes a difference. Read a book several months ago that was supposedly helped people change their way of thinking so that they could get rich. In reality some guy had made it rich off of real estate deals and having accountants that knew how to keep the money out of the governments hands, and now was writing a bs book. Really bothered me how throughout the whole book he kept saying he wasn’t telling you how to get rich, just explaining the mindset a person needed to get to in order to finally take steps to getting rich. You can get your mindset to wherever you want it, but that doesn’t mean you’ll succeed with what you want. That guy just hit the market at the right time. If someone tried to pull what he did twenty years ago now, you’d be looking at bankruptcy. The whole myth anyone can get rich in America started when the country was still a bunch of colonies, and while immigrants might still have a mindset like that, I’m not aware of many people born and raised here that think that way. And most people that think that god loves you so you’re rich aren’t usually out there trying to get monetarily rich, except for the evangelical preachers that can convince everyone they should be the ones followed for reasons a,b,c. Most people that you see that really buy into gods love equals great riches are usually pretty poor and know that the odds are that is where they’re going to stay.
Re Yellowstone supervolcano- don’t know how much of the world would be affected, but with typical wind patterns, the US and Canada would get the brunt of it, and then the wind patterns would carry the ash east across the Atlantic and disperse from there. I think the biggest problem with figuring out if it would become a new ice age is that since we’ve had the technology to really measure and calculate stuff like that, there hasn’t been a new one to study. We can make all the guesses from dirt samples and the like, but can’t be completely certain until one hits. Also, changes aren’t going to be immediate, and eventually life will adapt. Unless of course you start talking zombie apocalypse, in which case we’re all screwed.
Re cartoon- well at least for the guy on the island, supposedly human meat tastes good, at least according to some docus I’ve seen in the past.
Re lingerie football/Rick Chandler- Chandler is some kind of reporter for NBC sports. Found some articles he’s written about various sport related stuff, but I think he does some announcing as well. The name sounded familiar when I read it, and I usually don’t keep up with print sport news.
Re speedos- unfortunately the link you gave won’t work, but went ahead and googled Abbott in a speedo. Not the worst offender I’ve seen, but still… worldwide ban on speedos now. Should never had been introduced in the first place.
Re Pachelbel rant- didn’t recognize as many of the songs from this one as I did from the Axis of Awesome one, and this guy’s voice wasn’t quite as good. Do empathize with him in regards to the parts for cello. Remember there was one song had to play and there were something like 45 measures where the cellos didn’t play. Was really difficult during the concert to keep professional body language and not let on how bored you actually were. Then there were a few other songs where we were repeating I think four different tones in 16th notes for a couple dozen measures. Pretty much if you got lost all you could do was fake it until it was over. There was one piece we played that the whole orchestra hated because of how damn slow it was, and when the violins start complaining about the speed, you know it’s bad. The only piece, by name, that comes to mind is ‘Winter’ by Vivaldi. There was one note per measure in the arrangement we used except for about 6, 7 measures that our teacher turned into a solo, which meant the rest of us did nothing.
Re Penn State- I think there is one of each. I know there is a Penn State University. Was a big scandal recently that an assistant football coach was molesting young boys. He was arrested and some others from the uni were fired because they supposedly knew about what was going on and ignored it. Looked it up and the prison I was thinking of was Eastern State Penitentiary, also in Pennsylvania, but on the eastern side of the state.
Re noticing stuff not supposed to- usually I don’t see it unless there is something to draw attention to it, like the movement in the axis of awesome vid. It is more noticeable toward the beginning of the vid, but if you look at the scenery behind them, and look in between the golden bits, there is some kind of orchestra seated behind the screen, and some of them are moving around enough to be noticeable. Then there is some guy behind Benny’s head that has on a shirt with some dark plaid and white squares that is really noticeable. Don’t tend to notice little things like a watch that doesn’t fit. The other two I made mention of, one was an opening that obviously is something you see over and over, and the other one was an ep that tended to get repeated a lot for a while. Most of the time I just try to enjoy the stories, and then if I get bored I might notice stuff the production people would rather you didn’t.
Re song rip offs- was a country artist here, guess it’s been a couple of years now, that was sued over a song re using someone else’s melody or something. Some indie or rock indie band that has enough of a following to stick around but that’s about it. Country star won, and I think I’d have to agree with Sting re collate vs compose. Think part of it might be that people like what is familiar to them, but still want something “new,” so by meshing together old beats and sounds, you get something that is familiar enough for the audience to like but seems “new” enough that they don’t call it a rehash.
Re alternative medicine- Pyramid Power! But in more seriousness using certain herb mixtures I can understand since that is where a lot of meds originated from at one point, anymore and I assume they’re almost completely synthetic. Having a guy slap fish together over you goes into the realm of how was anyone convinced to try this? Saying my parents use, there is a fool born every minute, and that is the only was I can start to understand that these wack jobs get followers. They say that the mind can work wonders on the body if you can just trick your body into going along with it, maybe that is what is happening. ‘Course there is a good chance those people fooled themselves into believing they had the aliment in the first place.
Re animation inconsistencies- video game screw ups are usually the best, though they seem to happen more in sport games. Was a game for the N64, think it was called Waverunner where you could crash into a cliff and the screen would look like you were half in the water, half in the cliff, and it would try to do the profile view and start spazzing out. Think I just expect a higher consistency from animation because if something was wrong it was a matter of redoing the cell, and the sheer number of people looking at it before it was canned. With live action stuff there are so many variables that little things, like a glimpse of a wrong date watch, or a married actor forgetting to take off a wedding band I don’t see as that big of deal. Another animation thing I remember from Scooby Doo, Where Are You? was when the characters were walking, they tended to glide, like the background moving faster than what it should have been for the pace the characters were walking.
edit1/15- There was a news segment last night where they threw together some animation of how a crash happened wehre a semi pushed a car into teetering on the edge of a brige. In the animation the truck plows through the car, leaving the car intact and not moving it more than an inch or two from its starting point. Classic case of if you're going to try to make a story dramatic with animation, it needs to be done at least accurate to the story, not something that looks like a rough draft of a first year animation student's project.
Re jazz- have never been much of a jazz fan, and the little that I do like tends to lean more toward the stuff that is simple background music that barely qualifies as jazz and some real jazz lovers tend to snub their noses at. I guess I like my music more organized than most jazz, especially the kind where it is all freestyle (can’t remember what it is called right now). Have only heard it a few times, but really couldn’t stand it.
Re song length- Seven minutes is a bit much for a song, usually. There is some instrumental music that I know I’ve heard that goes for over ten that worked. One that comes to mind is a piece on the score for the first Sherlock Holmes movie that had Robert Downy, Jr. and Jude Law. There was a piece that was I think 19 minutes, but it worked. I think in order for a song to get past about the four and a half minute mark it has to go somewhere, especially if it has lyrics, and any kind of two minute instrument solo doesn’t count as going somewhere. Think Freebird is the only song with lyrics that I can think of that goes on forever, but don’t know if it is considered a good song, or just well known for going on forever. It did get some resurgence over here for a bit when it came out on one of the Guitar Hero games – don’t remember which one.
Re US defending old rugby title- those were the days when it was still the big sport to play for the boys in the wealthier families. You know back when people in the US still acknowledged that there was cultural value in the world outside of the US – know that sounds hard to believe now.
Re baseball- not much of a fan, game’s too slow, though don’t mind playing it as long as I can be the catcher when the team I’m on is in the outfield. Pretty boring playing the far outfield positions during gym class, and we never played with mitts so if you played any bases 1-3 you tended to catch blame for not catching a ridiculously thrown ball and letting someone be safe. Usually there would be enough outs before you had to worry about anyone trying to make it home, unless it was a home run, which was beyond rare, and people would be still chasing the ball around by the time the runner made it home. So, as catcher you at least got to handle the ball, but rarely had anyone pissed at you. Kickball on the other hand was always a mess.
Re guy in Bloke song- maybe he was trying to mock himself to fit in with the blokes? (Toffee? As in faker? Only know toffee as a type of candy.)
Re Gruen Planet extras- I don’t know what is worse: that people sitting around thinking these products up or that they convinced enough investors to get behind them and ads were actually made. The Uro Club I can’t really think of anything to say about. How stupid do people have to be to not realize you’re taking a leak? And what about when you have to zip up and close the opening? Not to mention the smell, because there is no way I would believe that you could ever get the thing 100% clean. (Guess I did find something.) As for the boyfriend pillow, I could see it as a gag gift or a mean gift. A gag gift from a bride-to-be’s girlfriends at the bachelorette party (would you believe Microsoft Word doesn’t recognize the word bachelorette?). As a mean gift I could see a nasty mom or grandma if she thinks the grand/daughter won’t find anyone for whatever reason. Just can’t imagine anyone buying it for themselves. As for the voiceovers in both ads, they’re really bad, the pillow more so because she sounds like she is doing some kind of instructional video, but both are awful. Listened to it again, and sounded like it might be some kind of college project. Does Gruen pull their ads solely from Australia or from around the world? I didn’t hear an accent in the v.o., or it must have been really, really, really light.
Am amazed that all of this stuff is actually playing off of abc’s Australia site. Know I’ve tried to play a few extra things off of official UK station sites and they’re all country blocked.
Re banning Christmas- when it is put that way and it is all laid out, the stark truth is absolutely depressing about Christmas. One ad mentioned the cutting of trees, we have a fake tree, don’t know if that makes it better or worse since it will one day wind up in a landfill I’m sure, but it has been around for several years, and that is several years of not being part of the demand for real ones. Just …yeah.
Re PSA- I think I’ve seen the one you’re talking about re you’ve slept with everyone else your partner has slept with. Might have been when I was looking on YT.
Re cars- See the same thing over here re soccer moms driving big SUVs. Have only had one car so far, and that is a small SUV, which still has all wheel drive, which is usually needed in winter around here, and sits a bit higher than sedans, but not much. The car is from ’98 and don’t think you can find an SUV that small anymore (diagonally there isn’t even 5 feet in the back with the seats down and the back seat is a joke due to lack of leg room – only reason I can see to put them in was so it could be advertised as a 4 seater). After the accident in my car, the back door had to be replaced and the rental I had was a sedan and it drove me nuts how low it sat and you couldn’t physically see where the front and back of the car were. Couldn’t see any of the trunk at all out the back window, and it was harder to see what was behind you. Have sat in a few other coups and sedans when have gone into the dealer to pick up oil filters, and I don’t think I would ever buy a coup or sedan simply because you can’t see exactly where the ends of the car are. I know you eventually get the hang of where the car is at, but I don’t want to be paying anyone to get a bumper scratch off their car while still learning. I like the higher seating just so I can see where the ends of the car are, and with SUVs the end is very simple: if you can see your back door, you see the end of the car. The people that scare me the most in the big SUVs are the preppy sort of girls that are more interested in primping in the mirrors or think they own the road. Soccer moms tend to think they own the road, but at least have more experience handling a car.
Re Enya- This has always been one of my favourite Enya songs- Tempus Vernum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6omGtXBfA-o
I don’t listen to her a lot, but is nice every now and again. I think some people probably have problems with her because if you don’t listen close enough there are quite a few of her songs that can begin to sound the same. Also know that over here her type of music isn’t overly popular. Rap still has a fairly strong hold, but poppier music is starting to make a come back, though it tends to have a harder edge than the stuff from the 90s or early 00s.
Re I’ve Been Everywhere- The version I’ve always heard was the US version. Cash does sing the US version, but still think the guy doing the Aussie version has more cities he can get tongue-tied over, and have to give him props for the sheer speed he goes at. Does he even breath when he is listing the cities? Any idea who did the first version of the song? Cash is one of those singers that I like his voice, but just don’t really listen to him. Get this one stuck in my head from time to time
When the Man Comes Around
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9IfHDi-2EA
Took another listen to some on YT, and it seems like the stuff I like from him is newer stuff. He’s gotten a gravel quality to his voice as he got older that I like better. Took a listen to his Thunderball song and can’t see it as a James Bond theme. Too much of a country sound. Country just doesn’t fit with the Bond image, not even the one from the last couple of movies.
Re Hamster Wheel- the YT vid played by the abc link said that it was not available. Don’t know if it was removed from the site or if it is a country issue. Normally when it is a country issue it just says it is region blocked. The cat one I really didn’t like, but I’m not a YT cat video person. Never have understood why people get such a thrill from watching cat videos.
The weather one I really enjoyed. Seemed like they pulled a lot of clips from Irene coverage, which was completely overblown. The news agencies were hoping for this big disastrous hurricane to take out most of the east coast and top it off by devastating New York City, but Irene died down pretty quickly. Worse part of it was power outages that went on for waaay longer than they should have with no explanation as to why. Several years ago there were a couple of reporters, don’t think they were regular weather reports – just the guys that got sent out to wherever they were told to go, from different stations covering some hurricane and the one guy had to pull the other behind the shelter of a building alcove as the sign from the hotel they were at was ripped down and went flying by. The one guy was too busy trying to be dramatic to pay attention. Lucky for him the other guy was better at keeping his wits about him. I think the one that had to be pulled out of the way was Anderson Cooper, but I can’t swear to it. Tried to find some video, but without being sure about who the reporters were and what hurricane it was there is pretty much no chance, if it even made it on to YT. The following has kind of become famous for the over reaction by Cantore in the vid. He is covering a blizzard from February 2011 in the Chicago area that had a high amount of thundersnow for some reason. Was also some lighting which is also pretty rare.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJt4nV6hM1Y
We have one local weather reporter that is really bad about the over dramatics, and it seems that the more boring the weather cast the more dramatic he acts to make it sound interesting. Then the station he is on has started doing a “news” cast at 4:30 where not once does he give the full forecast. For that you have to wait until the real news cast starts at 5.
Re Madeleine story- I always love how sarcastic the Media Watch guy is, and it is just better because he’s so calm about everything. The regular media is just ridiculous though. Don’t know why they can’t understand that the girl’s life would be better if they just butted out and it is no one’s business what she is doing on the weekend except for those involved. It especially upsets me when it is the victim they keep harassing.
Re Hate Worldwide- my singing would be enough to arrest me, and my dad gets real pissy when someone starts singing along to anything, so its mostly quite humming or murmuring when I’m alone. Don’t dress like someone that is typically into metal, and can only imagine what someone would think if they saw me walking down the street singing this.
Re Brazillian metal- really was not expecting that. If I heard that without knowing it was tagged as metal I would have called it tribal. The sampler link you gave didn’t work, but was able to find a 13 min version of it on YT (at least I’m pretty sure it was the right song – it came up as Untitled on the vid title, but elsewhere it said that was what it was. Wonder how long ago that was since the 10 min rule has been enforced for quite awhile now).
Re From the Beginning- nice radio piece. The vocals could use a boost, as they seem to be overplayed by the instruments.
Re education article- it wouldn’t come up. Said it didn’t exist.
Re Rowan Atkinson- never seen any of his stand up before and found it very entertaining. It isn’t the type of humour that has me rolling around, but lot of snickers and smirks. Found this one on the sidebar. The recording isn’t the best. It’s the longest, but all the ones with video were horrible quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_hcO4N7hM0&feature=related
Ha! Came across a vid that is clear. The jokes differ a bit each time he does the sketch, but this one is shorter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOqvg5O1zK4&feature=related
Don’t know who I felt sorrier for with the credit card clip – Mr. Bean or the old guy.
re Cannibal Corpse Lounge music- funniest way I have ever heard something that violent expressed. Oddly enough some of the best lounge music I’ve ever heard – something is very wrong with that combination.
Re liking better with 2nd listen- nostalgia is setting in. Music tastes changes over time and maybe in comparing to what’s available now makes the old stuff seem better.
Re Alison Krauss- from what I know of her she is more folk/bluegrass singer than country. I have a few she sings from various soundtracks.
It Doesn’t Matter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkQDolWPTzM
Down to the River to Pray (not religious in any way shape or form but I really like this song)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkWn69VBslw
I’ll Fly Away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEA-aPui1A
Guess don’t need to wait for that 4000 one anymore
Word count: 4443 +edit
You have a good holiday Libra? Completely offline were you? Was reading an article in The Age the other week about people taking a break from the web...I used to be addicted to this site but give it a break for a while and you work out you're not obsessing over anything important! I'm not a FaceBooker...some people are addicted to that, apparently.
re not knowing if you could eat bugs...I'm sure that there's no real good reason why feel snobbish about eating certain foods...come the apocalyspe, those aluminium foil hat wearing survivalists will no doubt inherit the earth...eating the cockroaches. Not sure if I mentioned "Bush tucker man" before...think that's the one where he eats a witchety grub and says it tastes like something common. Not suggesting that you watch this, but I found an ep of that show here...was searching for "Les Hiddins and witchety grub"...not sure if it is that episode...3 x 10 minutes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1gVqNhoruQ
Don't watch Bear Grylls or whatever he is called...but I hear he is famous for drinking his own urine...which I have also heard somewhere is sterile, and good for wound cleaning or something. Saw a bit of an ep of his and it looked fake...he was purporting to be 20' up a tree and showing us how to jump from that height...he seemed to employ the common trick of editing...you see him falling down...cut scene...shot of him rolling on the ground. No doubt the last shot didn't show him jumping from near ground level and then rolling!
Btb re animals/pets, see a review of "Unlikely animal friends" in The Green Guide tv lift-out here...shot of a working Eskimo dog snuggling up to a polar bear! Looks good...don't have cable though...story says there is a You Tube of this though. Other stories sound interesting too.
re Obama health care...it's just my impression that the right wing side of politics calls those measures "Communist" or "Socialist"...it's like their propaganda against it. Australia has Medicare...I think it's unlikely for anyone to go broke here if they're hospitalised, though waiting times are bad, apparently, and dental care was removed from subsidy a while back, I think...maybe push for it to be covered again.
re people not actually thinking that one day they will benefit from unfair tax system in the US...well, I just thought that maybe they had falled for the right wing propaganda...if you attack the elites, then you are branded a "Communist" or something...have heard of the Marxian type term "false consciousness", which may explain the phenomenon I alleged.
As for how to get rich and scams...I saw an excellent docu series called "The ascent of money" which goes into forensic detail on this...it was pretty much a pyramid scheme, from memory. Memory foggy now, but basically land developers getting rich selling to people who couldn't afford the property...NINJA loans etc. That was just one topic of the excellent docu series. Business news had stories of banks paying ratings agencies to rate their products...ratings agencies gave those product AAA ratings, surprise, surprise. It's those 'AAA' products which caused the current economic malaise...we're still dealing with it now.
re Yellowstone super volcana effects unknowable...I don't think that that is right. Some docu I saw on similar theme mentioned how earlier super eruptions were recorded...maybe one Indonesia centuries ago had effects in England...people talking about the vivid sunsets there. And probably geological evidence for effect world over of such like...e.g. lack of vegetation half a world away in wake of super eruption...stuff like that...memory not clear.
re cannibal cartoon...yeah, the following factoid has stuck in my head for some reason...came across it maybe some years back...don't know where...mainstream source, no doubt...not some place creepy! (guessing it might have been on the ABC radio interview programme "Late night live"...where the topic may have been covered)...anyway, apparently the forearm of a woman is the tastiest part. Oh, God, man I hate those Murdoch free daily commuter newspapers...really horrible stuff printed there...recently a story about a European tv show where presenters ate each other...not in the nice way...I mean they had some flesh removed and they each other's flesh. Let's change the subject, please! edit in, 26/01, my date...another case of FFS news reporting...a commercial FM station broadcast some horrific, tabloid 'news' story from the US, I think, about a cannibal...really, get tired of being subjected to this kind of shytte in the media...why the Hell is this in the news?
re Pachabel and Winter...I actually love Canon! But I'm not a muso! There are two particular parts of Four Seasons which I love...don't think it's Winter though! You mentioned liking the voice of one of the Axis Of Awesome...have been meaning to look at that clip again to see who you are talking about. You said Rusty, yeah? I don't know those guys by sight though.
re noticing stuff on tv that you aren't meant to...that's a potential bug of mine...I mean I can be blissfully ignorant of something, then I read about it, and it's spoiled for me! I.e. I notice it too!
Hmm, re song rip offs and country act in US...maybe this rings a bell...as far as the ripped off act being Australian...brain cells need defragging though...can't think what Australian song that could be...YES.I.CAN. Australian country music legend Slim Dusty had a song from the 1950s, I think, called "The pub with no beer". A US act had a later song called "The bar with no beer". Same thing you had in mind? Think that Slim or whoever won.
re alternative medicine...well, some people, if they are dying, will try anything. Really sad in that case. That movie on Andy Kaufman referenced this phenomenon...Jim Carrey, as Andy Kaufman realises he has been fooled by a supposed healer. Similar story here in Australia recently...one person with some condition paid tens of thousands of dollars to an actual doctor, I think, who had him use a hyperbaric chamber or whatever they are called, on the assertion that it would help him. Helped the doctors bank balance in any case. Think he is not allowed to practice for years. Have been amused in the past by stories of women going to doctors to see them about a cough or something and the doctor tells them to take their clothes off...which they do. Hmm. "You have a headache, ma'am? Okay...take your clothes off and I'll examine you!".
re "I guess I like my music more organized than most jazz, especially the kind where it is all freestyle (can’t remember what it is called right now)"...would it be called "Bung bung"? "Bingy bingy bunga"? Actually, had the rare experience of reading the word "jazz" and thinking that it must not be a real word...you know how you sometimes come across a known word and you think "Nah...that's gotta be wrong"? Back to jazz..."Bebop"? Listened to Mingus Ah Um the other week. Like it. 1959 recording. Quite poppy. Like it. I tend not to like where the trumpets are ear piercing...prefer mellow stuff.
re Freebird...like "Carry on my wayward son" I think that that is a song which are unknown in Australia...apart from the fact that US shows always seem to reference them! One thing that has bugged me in the past...I'd hear the tail end of a song which is of a guitar melody...song seems familiar...maybe I like it? So, I listen wanting to hear a vocal or something new to clue me to what the song is. Turns out to be Clapton's "Layla"...which I don't like...wasting minutes hearing that interminable melody at the end to work it out! Also bugged how when listening to chart stations on a rare occasion, I'll hear something familiar and listen to work it what it is, but the melody or whatever is just interminably looped and I think "Eff this for a joke!" and switch stations. Tends to be the dance type tracks late at nights on some days.
re US defending old rugby title...I don't know of the context for that...maybe Australia was rubbish back then, and New Zealand too. There was the 'famous' victory by the US over England in a World Cup soccer game...maybe similar story for rugby? Think I may even have read of an England v USA cricket match...possibly even predating the first official internation match in the sport between England and Australia.
re baseball, in primary school we played soccer baseball or whatever it was called. T Ball was also done, and maybe softball too. Liked soccer baseball...I played soccer at the time. Is that the same as "kickball"?
re Gruen Planet ads...hmm, thanks for bringing to my attention the issue of cleaning the Uro Club! Yeah, I needed to hear that! They get their ads from all over the world. Apparently the US will bet a version of that. Have mentioned my favourite tv show of the last ten years here before, Shameless...the US version of the show is out now, with William Macy or whatever he is called. Probably give it a miss...I like the original too much...loved Sheila in the original...she was like a spaced out Brie from Desperate Housewives...but scarier...felt sorry for her boyfriend, the guy Macy plays...the dildo she used on him looked like a baseball bat!
re ABC v BBC...you used ABC's iView site? Or it's You Tube presence? Recently looked into BBC's iPlayer to catch up with a misrecorded ep of Young Dracula and a special ep of Psychoville...the Halloween special. Asked around on this site...got a reply for Young Dracula...saw the ep in low res on You Tube. Not sure if connected, but the uploader had their vids removed later, which sucks! Check out Psychoville if you can...liked it. Young Dracula is for kids...saw a review for it in the Green Guide and watched it...sticking with it...actually getting better now, but the first and last ep of the first series were good too. Hope the ABC shows the 3rd series....still working may through the last few eps I PVRd of the 2nd series.
re "I've been everywhere man"...Wikipedia says it was written by Geoff Mack and performed by Lucky Starr. Seems Hank Snow did the original US version. The New Zealand one might be good...they have a pretty liquid quality to their place names. It's lucky you brought that up again, because the other week on the radio they played another Lucky Starr song...called "I've had everything man", I think it was called. Basically a medical version of the song...as written by Dr. House, perhaps! It worked well...can't seem to find it on You Tube though.
re "When the man comes around"...intro after the spoken word reminds me of intro to Lucky Starr song...the guitar notes seem familiar too...can't place them. re his voice...my mum's big fan of Kenny Rogers. I didn't mind him. Heard him on AM radio some years back...his voice sounded just awful to me! Sort of gives you an "Aw DAD!" reaction!
re Hamster Wheel cat videos...well, they use those videos to 'analyse' political topics...maybe this uploader's video will work...unofficial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IxOGWLzNoI
edit in...official You Tube, I think...I'm assuming that the iView videos didn't work for you:
Chaser's channel vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yFcoAYkKME
NewOnABCTV channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8AhvEoLNLk
re thundersnow...thought you misspelled that! That US weather reporter or whatever you linked too...reminds me of those news stories about dogs spooked by the new years eve fireworks and run away, turning up at animal shelters...best to keep that reporter indoors on the 4th of July?
re loving how sarcastic the Media Watch guy...you never saw the original host, obviously...that was his 'thing'. He was also big on grammatical issues in headlines...I swear that sometimes you had to a theoretical linguist to get whatever grammatical issue he was talking about! He came a cropper one night though...a guest on Lateline here. He was being himself (snarky) towards a tabloid tv show journalist or host here who was also a guest. An American guest on the show took offence to him - the American had an equivalent paper or something to Media Watch - the Media Watch host was a bit discombobulated and his comeback was about how at least he didn't do his show for money. For me, it was just the Media Watch guy doing his thing...not sure if the woman minded, but boy, that American was on to him! His old eps are on You Tube too (I got loads of hits for "Stuart Littlemore Media Watch").
Libra...I could SWEAR that I've already posted that Rowan Atkinson Hell sketch! Tried searching for it in a place where I've archived this thread but no luck! Hmm. And I also think I mentioned how there are different versions of it...either I didn't mention that in this thread, or the search feature of where I've archived the thread sucks...and it often does suck.
re Tribal and metal track...I doubt if the track would be called metal...tribal seems a good word...the album does have thouse elements, but in a more metal context. It's a bonus track, I believe. Have seen some You Tube links with time runs at under an hour...sometimes you click on those and you don't get that...not sure what the story is with that...had some low res YTs of Psychoville which ran to around 15 minutes.
re education story links...wanted to link to this story...para 4 grabbed me:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/preschool-standards-shock- 20120107-1ppk4.html
Gosh, I was looking for that link you said that didn't work in your post, to do with education...my last posts to you don't have it...where did I mention it? I might try looking for another link...oh, I see it...damn...looks like the site shortens long links here and then they don't work...might try and look through the paper note where I first referenced it...should have given more info to be useful...so that I don't make the same mistake again, the info for the previous link, above, is:
Preschool standards shock
Cosima Mariner and Deborah Gough
January 8, 2012
* Found that article...had my notes on me...even going in to 'edit' mode on my earlier post couldn't retrieve the entire link):
http://bit.ly/tmcQyR
The bits which I found interesting in it were paras 11-12, 17, 21 and the last one.
Details:
How we're hooked on hard lessons from America
Denise Ryan
October 31, 2011
Noticed a story in last week's Age which probably overlaps with these recent teacher stories I've been linking too...relevant paras are the 7th and 6th last ones:
http://bit.ly/AdVmkY
Deets:
Teachers jump off the fast track
Jewel Topsfield
January 12, 2012
There was a good story next to it in the hardcopy version which mentioned one such teacher having terrific impact...but he's left the profession.
re Tony Abbott speedos...this link work?
http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/uploads/abbott_swim.jpg
Like Vladimir Putin, Abbott likes to present himself as an action man...ironically, in a pier to pub swim - I think - he was beaten by our state's premier...who doesn't portray himself as an action man...may even have a bit of a pot belly!
There's a story/pic here:
http://bit.ly/yAPRJx
Listened to those Krauss songs. She has quite a pleasant voice. I'm guessing that the song snippets I heard on that docu series on country music were more country sounding than the first two songs that you linked to...the second link was region blocked or something, but I had the song title on the screen so just went around to hear it. As far as female singers go, K.D.Lang has maybe the purest voice that I've heard. Find her version of Hallelujah definitive. There are a couple of Australian country or indie singers...if you're interested in hearing them...first one is siblings...
Angus and Julia Stone (he does most of the singing...really like this song)
Big jet plane (official video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFTvbcNhEgc
audio only
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=165RVtUhEvk
Julia Stone covering "You're the one that I want" from the movie Grease (chanced upon this the other day)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTbObag1r0I
Kasey Chambers - Not pretty enough (sounds very American here...and everywhere? Think it's about the demands of getting on music video shows)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5rOdF9rUKI
P.S. A while back we discussed American tourists being left in the water by Australian boat operators...saw the movie I had in mind mentioned in The Green Guide tv guide lift-out...film called "Open water"...not sure if it's factual or 'inspired' by real events. Meant to be good.
P.P.S. Was at a pokie club venue ordering lunch (don't gamble...just eat there occasionally)...saw something like this on the menu "Moreton Bay bugs in garlic sauce"...given are current discussion on this topic, I asked if they were real bugs...no...they're shrimp like marine creatures...but the item had me going for a while!
P.P.S. Pretty sure I'd posted a story like the following re schools recently but a reader comment in the next day's paper, I think, related to the US:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/schools-found-cheating-on-national-t ests-20120117-1q4lm.html
or
http://bit.ly/wqn9nh
The reader's letter to the ed, on the 19/01, said that New York had the same problem...these tests were used to close down schools there, even if the parents loved them.
Word count: 2,830
You can't create a post without a body
I’ve started job hunting recently, and starting in November there are supposedly more seasonal jobs available. Almost all of my time was spent trying to find any job, and by the time I got done job searching/applying I was just completely sick of the computer. The last response was written over about a two week period, and is really something that I’m sincerely hoping doesn’t happen again.
Re Facebook addiction- heard more about that a few years ago. Facebook over here is starting to dwindle and people seem to be getting sick of it. I joined when I started college, and any more someone from my generation is expected to know how to use it and network with it (& Twitter & Linkedin & Google+ & whatever other social network bs comes along), etc, etc, but I’ve never really cared for it overall. For a few months I was really into one game on there, but more and more problems kept arising with the game, and the developers didn’t seem to really give a crap. People would contact them and it would take forever to get a response, if you got one at all, and sometimes the problem was never addressed. Then they have pretty much completely rehauled it from what it was originally was, and it is all about repetitive clicking than anything else, plus a second “improved” version was brought out and almost no one plays the original anymore.
Think it was about a year and a half or so there was an ABC news story over here about one of the Asian countries, think it was Japan or South Korea but not 100% sure, where they’re having all sorts of problems with kids middle to high school age getting addicted to computers and the internet. The kids are supposedly staying up all night playing MMORPGs, then as soon as they get home immediately get back on the computer, and in some cases skipping school all together to just play on the computer. Looks like South Korea was the one I heard about. This article pretty much sums everything up.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1983234-2,00.html
Overall I don’t care for the online social stuff, and never really have been. Used to be on imdb more as well, but so many of the board became nothing more than trolls and people saying such and such was hot. Even on the channel sites that host show forums tend to attract a lot of trolls (who I don’t understand why they watch the show if they hate it so much; if you want the show cancelled, don’t watch it and help the numbers, and if you hate it that much, change the channel, or if someone in your family is watching it and that is the only tv you have, go do something else) and cliques, and if you’re not in with the clique that has formed no one really talks to you. Just created a twitter acct about four months ago, but I use it about 90-95% to get info from the shows and channels I primarily watch, and then follow a couple of the people involved with the shows. Just don’t like the idea that anything you put out there is there forever and you never know when it will come back and bite you in the butt. Also, the problem of employers thinking that they own your entire life any more and using posts you put on any social media site are fair game for grounds of termination for any number of reasons.
One that I found roughly a year ago that so far been pretty decent is called GetGlue.com. It is a site that works with different tv networks, movies, recording artists, etc to make stickers related to the show/movie/whatever that can be sent to you after you collect so many. For a movie example say the production company has brought out four different stickers. In order to get the sticker you have to meet the check in conditions, so there may be one available as a coming soon advertisement, so you usually have to watch a trailer on the site and then check in, and you get that sticker. Then there would be an opening weekend sticker where if you check in the weekend the movie came out you’d get that one, and for the other two there might be extra vids (other trailers, behind the scenes maybe) you watch, check in and get the sticker. For tv shows, some have started having one new sticker per new ep, others just do a coming soon and premier sticker. I know this description sounds a bit nuts, but it is quite simple in practice. My favorite part of the site are the check ins, in which you comment about the show, and while the show is on it turns into a kind of chat room, and the best part is I have yet to encounter any trolls on any of the shows/movies/books/whatever that I’ve participated in so far. Also, because it tends to change up a bit each week and there aren’t threads like in a forum, cliques don’t seem to be forming either and you see more interaction between people. They also have a mobile app so it makes it even easier when watching shows and whatnot. I don’t know how active the company is outside of the US at the moment, though, re stickers and contracts with companies. Have seen some British people on there, and I’ve seen some Doctor Who stickers, but those might have been for the BBCAmerica broadcasts. Then again there could be country settings and they don’t show you stickers that technically would be impossible for you to get (i.e. a premier ep of some Japanese show is airing and you’re trying to check in from Germany – obviously you’re not really watching it as it airs.)
re survivalists- haven’t seen it, and don’t have plans to watch it, but there is a show that just started over here about people that are preparing for the end of the world, ‘Doomsday Preppers.’ From the previews a lot of them seem like the militant type that aren’t necessarily doomsday people, more the kind that just have stock piles of food and guns for when they hole up after finally doing something stupid enough for the government to have a legal right to storm the compound and arrest everyone. There was one woman though, that justified being at least 100lbs overweight by saying that once the end comes she’ll be able to loose 100lbs before having to start in on her food stock pile while everyone else just immediately starves to death. Don’t buy that. There are a lot of overweight people that are overweight because they just keep eating when they aren’t hungry so it gets to the point they can’t tell when they are full and when they are actually hungry. I can see the fat lady panicking as everything goes to hell around her and consuming her stockpile without even realizing it.
Watched the first two parts of the ep you linked for ‘Bush Tucker Man.’ Seems like a smart guy, and wasn’t eating anything too crazy. He was showing you stuff that seemed to actually make sense. There are some shows, like the Bear Grylls guy that just immediately goes to the extreme, like oh no you broke down in a forest in the middle of nowhere – you must eat the ants or you’ll starve!!!!!! No, ants are the last resort after the berries, trying to fish, etc.
Re Bear Grylls- the problem with him was that he, his producers, and the channel all made it seem like he was actually in the middle of nowhere and there was actually a threat. At one point he and his crew where later discovered to be in a desert not too far out of a city when they were supposed to be lost in the middle of the desert. I will give the guy credit that he has the qualifications to survive this stuff and the knowledge to pass on, but instead of being upfront about how it was done, he kept pushing the image that he was in the middle of nowhere with no safety harness (literal and metaphorical), and I think the channel and the producers were denying they were faking everything until a vid surfaced online showing how fake they were. If they had just fessed up it probably wouldn’t have been a big deal. Remember seeing one vid where they kept trying to get a shot done of doing a fire in the desert right next to a path, and the crew got pissed when dirt bikes and ATVs kept riding by.
Re animals/pets- was the bear full grown in the dog/polar bear scene? Or had the bear been raised by people? Show on Animal Planet that airs every now and again that shows stuff like that, lot of large cat cubs born in zoos or reserves that get abandoned and a dog living with a zookeeper or ranger tends to adopt them. Saw a picture yesterday where a bunch of baby ducks were following a dog around that it looked like they imprinted on.
Re healthcare- the US has Medicare and Medicaid. Medicaid is for the people who have no money; Medicare is for old people. The far right wing calls both of these policies socialist because it is society taking care of people instead of people taking care of themselves. The moderate right only calls Medicaid socialist because they usually believe in taking care of old people. Their issue with Medicaid is that there are people who make their living playing the system, using welfare as their only income, and then complaining that they never get enough, without ever trying to really help themselves. These same people also miraculously have a big screen tv and premium cable, yet they somehow can’t find a way to take care of the necessities. You also wind up with druggies on welfare to support their habit. There are some politicians that are trying to get drug testing required for welfare recipients, but it has had mixed success because the other side is arguing it is an invasion of privacy and unconstitutional. I’m not holding my breath that it widely passes any time soon.
Re this is news?- there are a lot of stories like that. I’ve never paid close attention to the news to begin with, and anymore I just give it about half an ear if one of my parents has it on, but take anything they say with a grain of salt. I imagine once the zombie craze starts dying down there will be fewer of the type of story you mentioned.
Re Four Seasons- I like the ‘Spring’ section. Know I played the ‘Autumn’ portion, but can’t remember how it goes, and never remember hearing the ‘Summer’ movement.
Re Axis of Awesome- it was the shortest guy, think the name was Benny. The piano player.
Re country singer ripoff- both parties were from the states. Looked it up and country singer was Gretchen Wilson, song “Work Hard, Play Harder,” sued by The Black Crowes who say she copied their song “Jealous Again.” Listening to both and there are definitely similarities. Here’s both. I think they had a case, and maybe if they were more famous they could have won.
Work Hard, Play Harder – official vid & channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EflVJA6kKf0
Work Hard, Play Harder – not official
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuJZZDs_fEw
Jealous Again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owxtKzJLQQY
re creepy doctors- I can’t imagine how completely clueless anyone would have to be to take all their clothes off for a cough. If the person had a really tight shirt on, I could understand maybe needing to roll it up or take it off, put it would have to be practically painted on.
Re freestyle jazz- I really have no idea. Is there an Improv Jazz category? Last time I heard it was in I think 8th grade when the high school music teachers were trying to recruit for jazz band. Most jazz I listen to is in soundtracks. A classic anime, ‘Cowboy Bebop,’ tends to have a lot of jazz, and the soundtracks I have from it are probably my largest collection of jazz. Took a listen to Ah Um and it wasn’t bad.
Re words appearing wrong- that happens to me a lot. There would be times at uni when I was writing papers that it would happen a lot, and sometimes even after looking them up I would still think they were wrong. Some of the most embarrassing is when a word is hyphenated in a book or article and because of where the hyphen is it takes a minute or two for the word to click. Then I feel like an idiot.
Re Freebird- must not have been a great song if it didn’t go international. Must just be famous for length then. It’s by Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose most famous song over here is ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ which I doubt lends itself to crossing many borders either.
Re recognizing music- by biggest problem there is hearing something that I think is one song, especially intros, and it turns out to be one that is just similar that I don’t like. Still haven’t really gotten back to listening to the radio. Was trying and most of the music was still kind of so-so. There was a station that was broadcast for a bit that was mostly 90s and early 00s, which I enjoyed, but then it switched to I think a hit station, and it is mostly blah now.
Re kickball- from the very brief search I did kickball and soccer baseball are the same thing. Didn’t look up rules or whatnot to compare, but all the descriptions had one and then the other in parentheses, so close enough. Probably one of those things Americans call it one thing while the rest of the world calls it another.
Re Shameless- saw some ads the other day where they’re getting ready to start their second season, but it is on a channel we don’t get. Probably a good thing given the channel it is on they’d be able to be racier and get away with more. Don’t know if I brought this up before by a US version of Skins was done for MTV and it had all the parents up in arms. From the little I watched of it, looked pretty accurate as to what some kids get up to. Think people should be more worried about that (or the shows ‘16 & Pregnant’ and ‘Teen Moms’).
Re ABC vs BBC- I’ve been using the links you’ve given me that take me directly to the shows webpage hosted on the ABC site. Doubt there would be youtube vids embedded on the actual webpage. Think I went back and tried to get into one show and it didn’t work, so not everything, but enough that it really surprised me. Maybe since there really isn’t a lot of Australian tv imported over here they aren’t that picky, whereas BBC has it’s own station over here and some networks show some of the BBC shows.
Re “I’ve had Everything”- this the song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjwjDjwAjxs
Very catchy, maybe more so than the Everywhere song. Should be the theme song for House. Also found the NZ version of “I’ve been Everywhere”
Quality is a bit off if places but pretty decent, Lucky Starr did this one as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yljvA_2BxPk
Seems Lucky Starr recorded the US version, too, and like him better than the famous Johnny Cash version.
Speaking of House, read yesterday or the day before that this is the last season of House. The last ep will air here in mid-May.
Re Hamster Wheel- watched the four vids. Understand what they are doing, but still think it’s stupid. However, due to these vids I will forever think of the fat cat eating at the table when I hear about Graham Richardson.
Re Rowan Atkinson Hell- don’t remember it from before. Maybe it was one that wouldn’t open or when YT was acting up.
Re education- a mess from start to finish. It sounds like a good idea to have the kids in some kind of structured school starting at 4. I wound up in a pre-school at age 4 because my babysitter moved out of state, and by the time I entered kindergarten the next year I was reading at a 2nd grade level. Not saying that is going to be typical of every kid, but obviously it is beneficial, and think the people doing that study have a right to be concerned. The problem over here with mandatory pre-school is that you get parents that don’t want to cut the cord. We still have kindergarten programs that are only half a day, and when it was suggested they go to all day programs there were many parents that threw a fit.
As for the charter school vs regular school debate, the charter schools have a lot of advantages over the regular schools. Charters are paying the teachers to do all the extra hours and whatnot; regular teachers don’t get that kind of money. The parents that have their kids in the charter schools want them to learn and are willing to work with the teacher; regular school you get parents that think it is all the teacher’s fault their kids isn’t succeeding, period. Was one teacher at the school my mom teaches at that had a parent threaten to sue her saying that her child was failing because the teacher was racist. If the teacher was racists most of her class would be failing. If the kid acts up in a charter school, the school has the right to remove the child from the school; regular schools don’t have that option. Now it has gotten to the point if you even want to put a kid in detention the teacher has to call the parent to schedule the detention. It is no longer the student’s responsibility. It still goes back to if the kids want to learn, you can teach them something. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter what you do, and odds are they will wind up being a disruption to those that do want to learn. Remember one class I had where there was one kid that was always getting in trouble that started sleeping in class. Got to the point where the teacher just let him sleep because it was the only way the rest of us could learn anything.
We had a school district in the city I live in have problems with its accreditation, meaning that the test scores for the district where bad and not improving. In an attempt to fix this they changed the boundary lines for the schools and closed down some, and took what was a good performing school and put kids from another school there. The idea was that it would help even out district scores. Instead they took probably the only good school in the area and turned it into another problem school. In the first year of integrating these other students gang problems were introduced, knife fights occurred in the halls, and in one very memorable day, the fire alarm was triggered or pulled four times in one day (think it was determined that one time was legit, but happened because someone had started a fire in a bathroom trashcan.) This district has now completely lost its accreditation.
One of the articles mentioned the German system of schooling, which the last I was aware of separated kids into three different groups starting in about the 4th grade. There was the group that was determined would go to technical programmes (auto repair, heating and A/C repair, etc), the ones that would go to a middle of the road programme (2-year college maybe), and finally those that showed potential to go through I think at least 4-years of college. This was all based on grades and standings up until that point.
Thought of something else about charter school while typing the last paragraph and now can’t remember what it was. Oh! Standardized testing – don’t think they have to do it. Means the teachers can actually worry about the material and not the useless test. Don’t like the ‘performance pay’ mentioned for this reason. As we’ve discussed earlier, the standardized tests don’t work, and basing a teacher’s pay on it is absurd.
Teach for wherever is questionable at best. Like the last article said their weren’t enough positions for some of them, and they had to find jobs outside the field. Then the idea that you stick someone that is 21-years old with no teaching experience in a problem school and expect them to want to stay in the field is crazy. Why would someone want to willingly stay at a school that they have to go through metal detectors anytime they enter or leave the school? Where kids are finding ways to sneak weapons in, fights in the halls and cafeteria are every day occurrences, etc. If the teacher gets placed in a charter school it is a different story, but the regular schools… Like the woman in the last article was asking, why is Australia taking so many ideas from America when there is plenty of evidence to show they don’t work.
Re Abbott speedo – my eyes are burning. Good for the guy with the belly, and if he has more ocean experience he has a leg up – big difference pool swimming vs ocean swimming, and I think Baillieu has more muscle than it seems.
Re Angus and Julia Stone- Big Jet Plane was good. Didn’t care for their rendition of You’re the One That I Want. Knowing the original pretty well it just sounded completely wrong the way they did it, and I know style and artistic license comes into play, but just couldn’t get past it this time.
Re Kasey Chambers- Maybe it’s the video, but it reminds me of a song that you’d find on a soundtrack for either a 90s teen movie about the social outcast in high school falling in love with the popular jock character and everything turns out rosy in the end or a more recent romance or romcom or teen drama (stuff like Gossip Girl).
Thought I recognized the name, and after wiki-ing her was able to track down the song I knew her from. Amazon has free songs and albums that are available for download (mostly samplers and random singles – usually not artists that are very well known) and Chambers sings one of my favourite songs that I ever picked up this way.
Rattlin’ Bones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRFZ2uOD4mk
One of those artists I kept thinking I needed to look into more, and kept forgetting to do so.
Also like this song by country group Little Big Town. My mind tends to associate these songs with one another, though there is a bit of a different feel.
Bones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVisABCk0kI
Word Count: 3881
You've finished study, or you're just looking for between semester work? What's the job market there like? You said you were doing an Arts degree or something, didn't you? History? People can be cruel...you probably get that toilet graffiti which reads - above the toilet paper dispenser - "Arts degree...please take one!". Was thinking with the GFC that economics degrees etc might be the new Arts degree...as in "What's an economy?"...meaning that there might not be one anymore.
>>> If you're doing history, just curious about the state of that in the US...over here, Australian Studies has been in the news recently...one uni is making it a research only subject (no undergraduates), whilst another uni either scrapped it or cut the staff numbers (forget which). I think the feeling is that maybe Australian students think the subject boring - though, apparently, those who do study it do enjoy it - or they view it as jingoistic or something. Is American history popular in America? What are American students attitudes to studying it?
re Facebook...what game is that? Have heard that people are dropping off the site...can't say that I was ever really onboard in any case. Maybe they are floating at the right time...they've peaked and if they wait too much longer they'll be like MySpace...remember that? Reminds me of that Shaun Micallef line...MyFace and SpaceBook...you know, that Australian sketch show guy? I hear he has a new news satire show coming out...will probably watch it if it doesn't conflict with other stuff.
re Asian net addiction...I've been hearing about that kind of stuff as well...maybe even teenagers dying because they just don't move from their computer! The other thing I've been reading about is the issue of cheap Asian labour getting paid to grind Westerners' online game rewards! Don't play these games myself, but white folk don't like having to grind to level up their characters, so they pay Asians peanuts to do this for them! Related issue is crime in this kind of stuff...details foggy to me though...issue re virtual and actual cash and not getting stuff when you buy it etc. Also related...in China, I think, people are paid to claque...if that is the right term...they're the government's cheer squad...say nice things about them or maybe even dodgy products scams. Of course, no doubt, some are spying for negative comments about the government.
Agreed re IMDB...used to find it addictive. Found myself more than once starting to reply to a post and just getting bored with the prospect and bailing out as a result. It's surprising how trivial it all seems if you aren't doing it day to day. Have also heard of employers asking for your online IDs...why not create one just for that purpose? That way you can be yourself online and have a pure as snow account which employers can't judge you on.
re trolls...well, sometimes I think it's just a case of people defining this as anyone who doesn't agree with them...their logic being that no one in their right minds could disagree with their opinion. Maybe sometimes it's hard to tell those people apart from actual trolls...people just making mischief...I know that people think I must be trolling with my opinions on things...I just get the feeling that these people must think themselves geniuses for liking something...as if liking X or Y is the equivalent of being a member of MENSA or having a 150+ IQ. All pretty silly really. But, there is an element of cliqueyness involved in these things too, I think.
re stickers...hmm? You get an actual sticker for collecting virtual stickers? I know that as a kid I used to buy those bubblegum card combos...with a few cards that you basically never got to complete the set! I know that I watched the latest Mission Impossible movie because you could win a car if you did! That approach wouldn't work every time...e.g. the rescreening of the Star Wars prequels...you can win something...but I'd actually have to see the movie again...der...no brainer.
re survivalists...did see a docu on this last year, maybe. From memory, some varieties seem okay...sort of back to nature-ists, whilst others seemed a bit more wacky. re the 1000 lbs woman...what's that in kg? 300? ...she'd be pretty easy to chase down, yeah? Your larder would be stocked for ages with her in it, yeah? Btb, have seen or heard of docus about guys who love big women like this...they encourage them to eat that much. Weird.
re Bear Grylls...watched an episode which grabbed me the other week...urban survival...seemed dodgy...climbing up great heights in factories for pigeon eggs...getting down elevator shafts. A lot of it seemed really risky behaviour for small reward...risk your life for a pigeon egg? Mkay. Unless you were trapped in a skyscraper, such risk taking seemed unwarranted. Hmm...he's also drunk his own urine, apparently...probably warranted...you know, you haven't had anything to drink for a few hours...best just to drink your own urine. Okily dokily.
re bear/dog playing. Wild bear. Working dog. I'm thinking that the bear is a survivalist...come the Apocalypse, when it's hungry, it will have the dogs onside, so they it can eat the humans without too much of a fuss.
re welfare...over here it's argued that under the previous conservative government middle-class welfare went through the roof...I have a sneaking suspicion that the beneficiaries of this welfare would be the first to bemoan the 'undeserving' recipients of welfare. One area where this happens is in education...private schools here get government funding. Apparently in the UK private schools are public...or something...I mean the variety of school where you need to earn a decent wage to pay for it.
I'm copying this from my review here of Capitalism: A love story:
"The economist John Kenneth Galbraith's ironic summation of the British conservatives' position on taxes and incentives is quite illustrative here:
"The rich need more money as an incentive and the poor need less money as an incentive"."
re "this is news"...sometimes you allude to something I said and I'm not sure what...did a Word document check for this phrase in my post and nothing came up...I don't want to read my post again! Have you seen the size of it?
re Benny from Axis of awesome...I think he was the one they told to get fycked because of his view on songs using all the same chords? I found that funny...probably my reaction too!
re song rip off re Black Crowes...Gretchen's song had a bit of a Bon Jovi "Sleep when I'm dead" vibe for me! Both seem rather generic though as far as guitar vibe and vocal rhythm go. Only listened to less than first minute on both songs though...sort of got the impression that Black Crowes would be open to the same charge from an earlier act too.
There was a case here which I thought was bad precedent...Men At Work's international hit "Down under" was successfully sued for plagiarism after the melody in question was featured as a question on tv quiz/game show. The melody comes from a traditional song. Just crazy, I thought..there must be more egregious examples of stealing than that one and which saw no adverse findings against one party. Also heard how George Harrison was successfully sued by a lawyer which had represented him in the same case over plagiarism charge! Furthermore, that lawyer had bought the rights to the song and then sued Harrison! Just total bs. Feel sorry for George, but apparently he won in the end...just crazy that it got that far in the US courts (I assume).
Saw something similar re Superbowl ad...it allegedly rips off an Australian song by an American born singer (one of his parents his American too)...an all time classic song...not sure if it's in court or going to be...
The John Butler Trio - Zebra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO2b3cggqs0
On Letterman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9gAqvttwq8
Oikos Greek yogurt ad on Superbowl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y59VUQxX3Dk
The news story which alerted me to this mentioned how JBT fans went ballistic about this ad and JB got wind of it...he's looking into it.
re jazz...I think that by its very nature it's "freestyle". Did you find Ah Um poppy like me? I've just got in the mail The Bad Plus' 'Motel' album...they do a "Smells like teen spirit" cover. Also recently listened to Jazz In Swedish, which I only heard about because the main guy in a heavy metal band - Opeth - mentioned it as influential to him. Never heard Opeth before...apparently their latest album isn't very metal. Liked the Swedish jazz album...relaxing. Might check out more from that guy...seems he might be mainly known in Sweden. Never checked out Australian jazz names like Don Burrows and James Morrison. Might have to...'One of these days'.
re hyphenated words...yeah, that's always tripping me up...whether a word is hyphenated or not.
re Sweet Home Alabama...no, that's classic rock over here. Don't think anything else of theirs is played though. Did hear Journey's Don't stop believing on commercial radio over here...guessing it's the first time...or the first time since it was released that that has happened. Seemed like a 'big in America' track to me and once I found out what it was I didn't stick around to listen to it...for once my digital radio actually gave track info! Anyway, I doubt if Americans give a shytte if other countries like their songs...they'll call it a classic anyway. Personally I think loads of Australian songs are classics...even though they were never released or never charted in the US. The station where I heard Journey the other day...think they're playing long forgotten songs now and maybe airing some American 'classics' for the first time here too...they have been flogging The Human League's "Love action" recently (doubt if that's been played for decades!)...granted, a UK band, but you get the picture...don't you?
re Kickball...reminds me of a joke on the Cosby show...his West Indian friends refer to baseball as "rounders"...a childrens' game...I think the audience groaned at that! They don't like, it seems! Would have been cool to see those West Indian characters mention cricketers...maybe they did...probably didn't mention Australians which is why I don't remember it. Hmm...there's an Australian cricketer who is used in Indian ads...Bollywood style...probably very groan inducing...I actually can't bear to watch more than a few seconds!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EcWmkObJfQ
re Shameless...I saw a picture of the lead actor in character and he looked like the British guy...I mean, they don't look alike, so maybe there is something universal or Jungian going on? Don't think it's on free to air tv over here...from my point of view the British show is the best show of the last ten years...maybe people will think I'm trolling. Skins is shown on the same network as Shameless here...maybe a replacement programme some years...never watched it though. The indignities the main man of Shameless suffers can be funny...he deserves it, probably...gosh, my eyes popped out of my head when his girlfriend sodomised him with a dildo the size of a baseball bat! Did read of the finale to the first series of the US show...not sure if it is the same as the UK show in that regard, but it did seem pretty full on, as far as storylines go.
re Lucky Starr...great work Libra! You must have good search skills! I had no luck...what worked for you? You can give him credit for doing the Australian version, which would be hard enough, but to pull it off for a foreign country? Even more impressive! Not sure if he's toured there and maybe so it's not as impressive...impressive as it is though. That medical one did have shots from House. If he didn't say "Lupus" maybe it's not meant for House?
re Graham Richardson...I'm guessing you've already forgotten who that is? He appeared in one of those videos...not sure if you saw that one. He was a famous Labour Party power broker..."by any means necessary" kind of guy. Not that you'd care. Not sure whether I've covered Australian politicians with you before...he was of the same era as Prime Minister Paul Keating, also of the Labour Party (well, they Americanise their spelling...'Labor' Party).
In case I haven't, this is a line which I think was devastating...and funny...he's asked a question by the opposition leader, a conservative:
Opposition leader John Hewson (spruiking his "Fightback" election campaign):
I ask the Prime Minister: if you are so confident about your view of Fightback, why will you not call an early election?
Prime Minister Paul Keating:
The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly.
Don't know how well that sells in the US, but I just love it! Actually, it seems an 'American' kind of thing to say...albeit on a wrestling show!). He's got some other funny comments in the link below, which is where I found that quote, above...it might be on You Tube, but I didn't want to trawl through minutes of footage trying to find it.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Paul_Keating
Liked these ones from there too:
On John Hewson
"(His performance) is like being flogged with a warm lettuce."
On the second (1989) attempt by Andrew Peacock to gain the Liberal leadership.
"A soufflé doesn't rise twice."
Parliament doesn't have characters like that now...well, both sides try for this kind of wit, but can't manage it. Not sure if we've discussed this before...there is that famous American political quote re a candidate and his ability to walk, talk, chew gum and...
re education...saw a relevant article in Murdoch's broadsheet over here:
The Australian, 17/02/2012. Justine Ferrari - Lessons from Asia show way forward for schools
http://bit.ly/wcL5NW
Going on memory, the theme of my references is that Australia is following the US model of education...and the question is...why? It makes as much sense as the Australian rugby union team looking at the practices of the reigning olympic champions in rugby...the US. Presumably out politicians get all girly about American politics...perhaps 'networking' over there and getting all gooey about what the politicians are doing there. Maybe this feeling about American politics is something new...we were more anglophile before WW2. Did some year 12 level Australian history...amused reading a magazine from WW1 era...article on the US...had a wary but fascinated tone to it...sort of like Americans were our unruly cousins and we should be friendly to them...but make sure that they don't steal anything of ours (not literally!).
Maybe the 'take home' message is found at the top:
"AUSTRALIA is focusing on education reforms that have limited value, such as school funding, teacher pay and principal autonomy, while successful Asian countries are forging further ahead with their singular focus on improving how students learn."
I noted pars 3, 5 & 7, bottom of the 8th and the 11th as being meaningful to me...from the hard copy though. It may square with the online article...as far as Australia goes, the bottom of the 8th par seems quite telling.
Mentioned different definitions of "private" school above (I think Australia has the most intuitive definition of it...the UK definition is basically the equivalent to our government schools)...haven't come across "charter" schools term before...have heard people here say of private schools that the students are 'spoon fed' their education, which is seen as an advantage for them over government schools. Have heard that teachers can be racist...not saying that that's the case with your mum, but I'm sure that it does happen...such that even when it hasn't happened, if it looks like it COULD have happened, you get trouble...and have heard of teachers here being subjected to violence for not giving students good grades.
re changing school boundaries...one issue that occurs to me is that private schools often 'lure' good students there...even government school students...maybe via scholarships etc...this must skew government schools scores and suggests to me that private schools aren't actually offering superior education...guessing that a lot of students there - even lured ones - would do well irregardless of whether they were in a public or private school...basically, it seems private schools are 'buying' a good score...which doesn't strike me as being fair.
re German system of schooling...well, over here, you'd have 'tech' colleges...for less academic students who want to go into the trades. Don't think that these exist any more now...ironically, these trades people now earn great money! If you've had to have plumbing fixed, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about! Well...assuming they charge yous an arm and a leg in the US!
re pool swimming v ocean swimming...not sure if I've mentioned this before, but men used to dominate long distance ocean swimming...one guy said he would quit if women did well...and this was around the time Australian women were actually beating the men! Guessing that that guy quite anyway. The women just probably love covering themselves in lard anyway, to swim in the ocean!
re Big jet plane song...really nice. Contra you, since "You're the one that I want" hasn't really aged that well for me, I quite liked Julia's version of that song...something different. I'm not trolling!
Thanks for that Rattlin' bones video...that's so rare...an American recommending to me an Australian song! That I haven't heard of! Nice! Do you have the album that that comes off of? If the album was like that, I'd definitely want to check it out. Does Kasey sound American to you? That can be off putting to me, but in this case I didn't mind it. Like that kind of thang...e.g. that song on Oh Brother...what was it? Man of constant sorrow...yup. What genre are those kind of songs? Bluegrass? Did hear of a US act which did that kind of genre to songs by, e.g. AC/DC...the concept excited me, but the execution didn't really grab me, so I don't follow it up. Worst money I ever spent was on a high concept cd...Beatallica...sort of a mash up of the Beatles type songs with Metallica type songs...not either of those bands played, but lyrics suitably mashed up...e.g. The thing that should not let it be...or something like that. One lives and learns from ones mistakes.
That Bones song...brings to mind Fleetwood Mac...what was that song they sung? Stevie Nicks sings on it...famous, probably...not sure if it was on their s/t album or Rumours...same genre as that Chambers' song? Maybe I'm thinking of "The chain".
I do remember liking some Linda Ronstadt songs, and she does dabble in country too. Got a compilation by her...reminded of her 1960s classic with The Stone Poneys..."Different drum".
You can't create a post without a body
P.S. What tv shows are grabbing your attention? I saw an ad on SBS TV over here for a new show...looked totally ludicrous...yet fun. Turns out it is an Australian show...hopefully it will work better than a similar concept show from here called "Funky squad".
This isn't the promo I saw...this is longer...a couple of minutes...but you get the picture!
Danger 5 trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z09bNgSeMI
Had a look at it...bit hot and cold...fun, but some parts were boring...will watch more of it though. Apparently started out as shorts on You Tube or something.
Also watched the Britcom Psychoville series recently. Guys behind that were notorious for their show "The league of gentlemen", which I haven't seen. Found Pschoville weird and amusing. Not a time drain...only two short series, of around 7 episodes each, plus a Halloween special.
I heard that Desperate Housewives is finishing...I'm still watching that. Looking forward to new series of Shameless, Weeds and Californication. Currently watching Mad Men and Dexter...damn pvr on the fritz so missed last episode of Dexter...bought a 2nd hand dvd of that series for $15. Also lost my recording of the 3rd series of Breaking Bad...the damn network didn't show the 2nd series on the same channel as I saw the 1st series...so I had to buy the dvd...will have to buy 3rd series too, if I decide to follow it. Annoyingly, some series are being shown back to back now, and now my routine of listening to a couple of cd around the weekend is in danger...Mad Men is back to back...wonder if the wait for the next series will thus be even longer...we're way behind pay tv. House is going back to back too. If you follow bad shows, back to back can be a real trial...if I was still following Vampire Diaries, that would be torture!
P.P.S. on the subject of Danger 5...here's an old Australian song which relates...I think that the dodgy lyrics do actually have a basis in fact...I won't give the song title though! Sorry it's too much for you...I was quite shocked when I heard this song for the first time on an indie radio station!
This Is Serious Mum (TISM)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DN7Aqq0500
For something left field...Australian song, nothing dodgy about it...might interest you:
John Williamson - Old man emu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZLx4Os8TBs
P.P.S. saw an episode of South Park last week...new...for here...making fun of the History Channel re Thanksgiving 'documentary'...is the Hitler Channel going down market?
Sigh...back to two posts!
Words: 3,500
>>> I didn't watch the following episode, but it's about education here in Australia...probably doesn't play in the US, but there's a synopsis and transcript available from the URL:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/02/06/3421391.htm
You can't create a post without a body
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Re work- looking for a real job. News claims that the job market is growing, so maybe something will turn up. The biggest problem is that everything I’m finding they want x number of years of experience, even just secretary work. Yeah, got a history degree. Think if I could go back in time I’d slap the sh*t out of myself and say ‘You’re getting a business degree. Don’t care what you really want.’ Don’t know if that would have worked, though. Only class I took business related was an econ course. Met from 8 to 9:30 am three days a week, and no matter what I did, I could not stay awake in that class. Think the professor passed me just because he didn’t want me back in his class.
Re history perception- Many unis still offer the degrees, though the departments are usually small. Not sure if still as popular, but used to be that people wanting to go into law would get a bachelor history degree and then go on to get a graduate degree in law school. From people I talked to in uni, non-history majors found history boring; history majors found history interesting – that was usu. why they were studying it. Re American history in general I’m not sure. My interest is medieval history, mostly European, and even I find Amer history boring. The one course I took that counted as Amer hist that I found interesting was Walt Disney and American Culture. Looked at the early days of the Disney Co. and how Walt’s view of the world influenced the movies, tv shows, etc. of the Co. and got to learn a bit about some of the other industry stuff going on at the time. Reading a book now about the Disney Co. under Eisner’s reign. Man seems like a real jacka**.
Re Facebook- game was called Zoo World. Unfortunately, I don’t think Facebook will ever disappear entirely, and it seems the younger a person is the more addicted to it they are (why they think they need to post everything that happens in their life to the world is beyond me), though in that game I played I came across many adults that seemed obsessed with Facebook and the games on it. Angry Birds just came out on Facebook so that will be interesting to see how it plays out. Do like that game. Reminds of early video games that were straight forward and the draw was their simplicity and fun noises. Granted in comparison to the old games it is flashy, but lot less sophisticated than pretty much all other games.
Re net addiction- don’t know if I’ve heard of anyone dying from it yet, but that might just be a distance issue. Have heard about people building up characters or whatnot and selling them to people aren’t interested in building one themselves – just read a book that mentioned people doing that, but book itself was fiction. Could see it happening more with the massive role player games than the social media ones.
Re cash for virtual stuff- that was part of the problem I mentioned before about Zoo World. There would be some animal that would come out to buy for cash usu. .99 USD, something would glitch and the people buying wouldn’t get the animal. Try to complain and it was difficult to get anyone to respond. Think all online games based on leveling up something have things that can only be bought for real cash. Hell there are gift cards in stores over here that are for that very purpose, which still floors me.
Re online IDs- there have been instances over here where employers have fired people because of what has been posted on Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’ve had a plan since hearing about employers doing that to have accts that are just for disclosure purposes and then ones that are my real accts. The other thing I don’t understand is all of these social media accts have the option to lock so you have to okay who has access. Just lock it and don’t give your employer access, and don’t let any of your co-workers have access to that acct.
Re trolls- I just don’t understand the people that claim to hate the show on the boards, think everything from the concept to the characters to the storylines is stupid, but they watch week after week and then go on the boards to trash it. There has got to be something more productive they can do with their time. I can understand to a degree people who are watching reamakes to compare to the original, but if you’re almost at the end of say season two and you still don’t like it, stop watching it. Odds are your opinion of it will not improve and everyone that likes the show gets sick of the b*tching.
Re stickers- basically. Each virtual sticker you collect is equivalent to the real world sticker. After you collect 40 stickers there is the option to have them mailed to you for free. There are cases where people just check in to get stickers, think movie check in are the worst for that, but overall it is a pretty decent site. Covers books, tv shows, movies, magazines, music, video games, maybe some other stuff I haven’t gotten into.
Re big girls- 1000lbs=453.6kg Show over here called Taboo and another one called Strange Sex (think that is the title) and both of those have covered the topic of the guys that like to sleep with morbidly obese women. On the Taboo ep they brought up a culture in I think the Middle East that having obese women in the family is a sign of wealth and force feed girls starting when they’re toddlers so that they gain a bunch of weight.
Re welfare- these are the types of stories that have people aggravated with welfare.
Lottery winner still collecting food stamps
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/michigan-woman-still-collecting-f ood-stamps-winning-1-201751693.html
She could have stayed in the house she was living in and that lump sum would have gone farther, or repaired it if needed. The neighborhood she moved from didn’t look much different from where she moved to. Had she been smart and taken the payment over time the money would have gone even further.
Living millionaire lifestyle on welfare
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/seattle-welfare-recipient-lives-m illion-dollar-home-161252749.html;_ylt=AkfRJsYoOi_4jmni8qUc2X0SH9EA;_y lu=X3oDMTFobDF0N3FnBG1pdANCbG9nIEJvZHkEcG9zAzQEc2VjA01lZGlhQmxvZ0JvZHl UZW1wQXNzZW1ibHk-;_ylg=X3oDMTM1ZDUxMGRrBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3R haWQDMDY1OTBjY2QtM2I1Mi0zYmUyLWIzZWEtNTAyZTI4MjliOTA5BHBzdGNhdANob21lf G9kZG5ld3MEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdlBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3
re this is news?- I think it somehow tied into some cannibal stories you mentioned, but even re-reading my own comment I’m blanking on what I was going for.
Re Superbowl ad/The John Butler Trio- think they definitely have a case. Could argue that the music was thought of independently, but there would have to be proof that the composer never heard Zebra prior, and that would be almost impossible.
Re Ah Um- I think I found it would have a wider appeal than just jazz fans, so I guess in that sense I could call it poppy. Probably as soundtrack, but not quite on its own.
Re music crossing borders- I think today it might be more of an issue than when Journey or The Human League was playing. You’re right that Don’t Stop Believing is considered a Journey classic, and while maybe not a rock classic, definitely a song everyone knows because it gets used for so much. With the internet, pretty much anyone with access can try to get big, and while it may not work in their country of origin, could get big elsewhere and then go international. Think most artists want as large of a market as they can get.
Re Aussie in Indian ads-so was that a comedian sketch or spoof type thing? As anything else doesn’t seem to make any sense.
Re Lucky Starr- Googled Lucky Star and the name of the song. Everything I found gave credit to the guy that composed it, and that was the only way it would come up in youtube.
Re education- It’s really gotten to the point where it seems the average person and teachers can try to explain the problems all they want, but the only people that are being heard are people that just study education philosophies and have no real teaching experience. Everyone likes to follow the latest trendy theory, think in part to shift the blame. “Well they said it would fix our problems. Not our fault it didn’t really work.”
Was a story over here where parents are now holding their kids back from entering kindergarten until their 6 because they think it will give the kid an advantage for the rest of their lives, and somehow all the other kids in the class will look up to that kid because he is older than the rest of his classmates. When I was in school if you were held back a year and older than everyone else you were thought of as a class idiot, not the one looked up to. Also a lot of emphasis on the physical size of the kid determining how successful and ready the kid is to go to school. If the biggest person physically was the best and smartest, NFL linemen or sumo wrestlers would all be rocket scientists or other really smart jobs and rule the world.
Redshirting: holding kids back from kindergarten
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57390128/redshirting-holding-kid s-back-from-kindergarten/
Here is the video segment, but not sure it will work. Think see a region block flashing even at me before it was starting.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7400898n
re which school- it is easier to learn in a non-disruptive environment where the other people there with you want to learn, or at least whose parents are pushing them enough that they pay enough attention in class to get decent grades. In a better environment the teacher is going to be able to cover more subject matter or go into better depth because the discipline problems aren’t as severe. While it may seem unfair to ‘lure’ kids to the private schools, sometime even the perception that there exists a better learning environment is more than enough incentive.
Re tech schools- we have those here, but usually they require a high school diploma. Where I went to H.S. there was a program where kids could sign up to go do technical or vocational training for half a day in their last two years. Think those have decent results. Don’t know if the program is still operational anymore or if budget cuts got it. Made sense if the kid knew they didn’t want to go to college or couldn’t afford to. Now there are a lot of tv ads for tech and voca schools, tend to target people that are a few years out of high school with a crappy job and going nowhere, but they have questionable results. Type where once you get the degree it is still questionable if you’re going to get a job because employers aren’t sure about the quality of training.
Re Revolution in the Classroom- haha! The principle is concerned with having 920 students at the high school. One I went to was just under 3000 when I left and hit 3000 the year after I left, and at the time we were the smallest school in the district. Have since built another school, but numbers are still way above 920 per school. The 2000 school is more typical. Segment seems to be mostly about giving control to the schools to do what they need to do. There are a lot of people pushing for that over here, as well, saying that the ones at the school are going to know a lot better than the government people from wherever will. Fully believe that, but it also means cutting politician jobs, which is a joke in of itself.
Re Kasey Chambers ‘Rattlin Bones’- The album I have it off of is Vanguard Records Sugar Hill Records Amazon.com New Music Sampler from 2008. Was a freebie download with five different artists on it. Doubt that does much good. Originally thought the ones singing it was a country group that was just starting out. Had no idea that she was foreign. O’ Brother Where Art Thou is bluegrass, and I think Rattlin Bones is right on that cusp where it could be bluegrass or country depending on personal definition. When I have it playing in iTunes someone has put the genre as classic rock, which I strongly disagree with.
Re current TV-
Alcatraz- done by same guy that did Lost, J.J. Abrams, and Jorge Garcia (think that is his name) also co-stars. Concept is that in 1963 instead of Alcatraz Island prison actually closing and everyone transferred, they just disappeared one night. Now they are all coming back, unaged from when they disappeared. So far mostly prisoners have come back and they all just kept on being criminals. As these guys come back there is a three person taskforce tracking them down consisting of one grouchy FBI guy played by Sam Neil, a San Francisco cop that got involved in the cases in ep 1 and pushed her way into the investigation, and a genius PhD comic book store owner who has written several books on Alcatraz played by Garcia. Alluding to some kind of experiments were going on at the prison. About 9 eps in so obviously not much has been revealed. Hoping for not something drawn out over too many seasons, but not optimistic. With shows like these I wish they’d draw out the whole plot before they shot anything, and had a set number of eps in mind. Would better ensure story over just drawing out for money.
Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MszNSnJPMxs
Being Human (U.S.)- have wanted to see Being Human UK because it sounded interesting, don’t have BBCA to see the American showing, and thought what the hell, let’s give the US version a chance. Find it enjoyable, though don’t see it ever becoming a classic or even cult classic. Have read online that in season 1 it started going away from the Brit version and by now the storylines are completely original and nothing like the UK, so yay for original storylines. Now in the back portion of season 2, and guessing about 4 or 5 ep left of this season.
Lost Girl- Canadian import that looks at the Fae world. Follows a succubus named Bo has never known her real parents and found out she at 18 she wasn’t human and been on her own ever since. Fae world set up into light and dark camps where each side hates the other. Bo decided not to join either after they find her. She looks to be in late 20s early 30s. Season 1 showing now and is about her finding her way in the fae world and trying to find out who her parents were, but with each ep has a case of the week deal going on as Bo has set herself up as a P.I. Network running it is going to air the second season right after the first. Synopsis from IMDB:
Lost Girl focuses on the gorgeous and charismatic Bo, a supernatural being called a succubus who feeds on the energy of humans, sometimes with fatal results. Refusing to embrace her supernatural clan system and its rigid hierarchy, Bo is a renegade who takes up the fight for the underdog while searching for the truth about her own mysterious origins.
Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU89U792jsY&feature=related
White Collar- Just finished season 3. Follows Neal Caffery, con man that helps FBI Agent Peter Burke (guy that caught him) solve cases while being confined to tracking anklet. Set up so there is a case in each ep, usu depending where they are in the overall story arc for the season. One of those casts that just melds immediately from the pilot so the show just works. Season 1 arc dealt with Neal trying to find someone and what that person wanted from him. Season 2 dealt with the mystery of what happened to person trying to find Neal, and Season 3 dealt with a Nazi U-boat treasure. Show tends to focus on dialogue, characters, and story more than any other cop show that is on over here. Think is one of those shows people are going to like or not because it doesn’t really push any boundaries about what is decent for TV or really inventive storylines, but for those of us that just want to enjoy a show about people for an hour, its good.
Only S1 trailer could find http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5iVTy-GuJ0
S2/S3 Trailers that showcase show bit better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGSWC0XqrPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR84jX0smDg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW6hCJdB4tI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbpBZs3_4Dc
Merlin- BBC version that is being shown by network over here as filmed, minus a couple edits for time purposes. Showing series 4 right now here, saw series 5 is getting ready to go into production in UK. New telling of the King Arthur and Merlin tale.
Face Off- did not want to like this show, but found myself drawn in. Reality competition with make-up artists. Each week they have a challenge where they have to make different prosthetics and/or make-ups to meet the needs. One or two goes home each week. Have seen old age make-ups, full body paint, human/animal hybrids, zombies, etc, all competitions about possible scenarios they’d might come across in the business. Season 2 finale tomorrow. Season 2 was better than 1 because there was less focus on crappy drama, and more worry about the make-up.
This trailer shows the contest they did for last slot, but otherwise I think the were vid auditions sent in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaqnR6mq5OE&feature=related
Fun from S1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=UzB8uASk _Pc
Amazing Race (US version)- This is how I cheaply see the world while still be amazed how clueless many of the contestants are.
Also watch a few paranormal shows. Used to watch Ghost Adventures, until the cable company pulled the channel from the package we have, watch Ghost Hunters sometimes – was the lead in to Face Off so caught sometimes all of it, other times just part. Also watch Destination Truth, which is more entertaining as a travel show usually than whatever they’re investigating. Bit worried for DT because they’ve been off the air since last April. Know the new eps were completely finished in Oct/Nov and the channel has just been screwing with the new airdate. First it was last fall, then it was early 2012. It is now March and there is confirmation that an airdate exists, but then channel just hasn’t released when that date is. I’m guessing summer, which was confirmed this past weekend, and in the meantime pondering who involved with the show managed to royally piss off which person at the channel.
Re Danger 5- Reminds me of shows made for a programming block called Adult Swim. The shows usually make little sense, are targeted for the lowest part of the male 18-34 tv bracket, all look like they were made for a few dollars in someone’s basement, and are most likely meant to be watched stoned, drunk, or both. Danger 5 at least looks like it has a decent budget, a costume department head that worked on Power Rangers, and some semblance of making sense, and as a spoof has more going for it.
Re TISM- can see where they’re going with it. Defication songs aren't my thing though.
Re John Williamson Old Man Emu- fun little song. Good vocals and interesting sounds. Love the Kookaburra impersonation.
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re wishing you'd studied Business instead...not sure if I mentioned this before, but at the height of the global financial crisis, I was thinking that disciplines like Business and Economics would be the New Arts degrees...as in they'd be of academic interest only...as in people asking you what an "economy" was, or what a "job" was...and explaining to them what it was was analogous to hearing about what people in the Bronze Age used to get up to! Well, it looks like we still have an economy. If you're really interested in history, you could become an academic I suppose. If you can't get tenure as such, there'd be SOME money in taking tutorials, I suppose.
re American history boring...well maybe it's a case of "The grass seems greener". The test of that would be whether you found Australian history boring! I'm guessing that Australians would find American history more interesting than our own. Do remember studying American Revolutions and just found it so depressing...I mean the treatment of the natives...the whites giving disease riddled blankets to them. Over here similar too...have heard of whites here putting - what was it? - plaster of paris in water? Natives died a horrible death in any case. No doubt are then conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, had this kind of thing in mind when he used the phrase "black arm-band view of history". Presumably he wanted us hearing about how wonderful English colonisation here was for all of us.
Do remember being intrigued by history of public of transport in L.A, I think it was. Used to have great public transport early last century. Major car manufacturers bought it and...surprise, surprise, let it run down. Car sales increased. Gridlock now, apparently. Even are most conservative governments here haven't been that stupid. Although where I live, such infrastucture allowed to run down over decades...overcrowding now and "on time" now defined to mean...within "6 minutes" or whatever!
Have played the Assassin's Creed series of video games...the first three. There's always some supposedly historical information there that is mind blowing...did make notes on it, but to no purpose...i.e. not sure if I could find them to share with you...just really gob-smacking info about Western leaders or whatever.
re Facebook...have heard that is on the decline. MySpace seems to be a ghost town now. Simple as Murdoch turning off the users? Mark Zuckerberg less evil? M'kay!
re giftcards...you mean people buy these for levelling up in games? Did see cards for games in store, but I think that's just to let you play the game online. Not sure if that is what you have in mind...or maybe they did allow you to buy virtual 'stuff' for your characters...if that's what you mean, yeah, that seems pretty stupid!
re big girls...yeah, I just do find it odd that a woman would let herself be persuaded to gain 350 kg for the sake of her boyfriend! A beached whale can't catch other fish in the ocean if they get dumped! Hmm...is that a male strategy to ensure fidelity? Pretty sneaky! Have been seeing more and more stories about very big babies being born...in China a baby was 7 kg...from memory...forget what 'normal' is now. You know about how in ancient China the women bound their feet because they were thought to be 'sexy' when small! Then there's those African women who bind their heads...they get cone-heads eventually!
Your food stamps link didn't work (try bit.ly or tinyurl for shortening links) but I found it on Google. The flipside never really gets covered though...well to do people getting welfare...I mean, your woman was poor but got rich. Over here - in the US too? - we have "middle class welfare" where conservative party extends to them the kind of benefits intended for poorer people. We have a phrase here "battlers"...people struggling to make ends meet. One conservative politician co-opted this phrase to mean people who were struggling to pay off the loan on a SECOND four wheel drive! Yuh...I'D like to have that 'problem'!
The commercial current affairs programmes also seem content to 'expose' the poorest of people ripping off the system...but not the rich and powerful who do.
Oh, back to your welfare recipients...have you heard of the phrase "asset rich income poor"? I'd have some sympathy for those...say if a pensioner who had lived in a house for decades in an area becoming gentrified...don't see why they shouldn't get welfare if they need it.
re superbowl ad...dunno...the US can be very weird...George Harrison's lawyer defended him over allegations that he ripped off another song. Later his lawyer bought the rights to that song and sued Harrison...and won! Crazy. Got overturned or whatever, so you never know. I think an Australian court's decision to find Men At Work guilty for ripping off a traditional song was stupid...but I'm not a lawyer.
re Aussie in Indian ad. Not, it wasn't a spoof. Legit. Probably par for the course, as far as Bollywood goes...I think they have the biggest film industry in the world...I'm not into musicals, so I've never really partaken, really. Couldn't stomach more than a few seconds of that ad...respect you if you saw it all the way through!
re Lucky Starr...one of those You Tubes had links to more versions by the same Australian for other countries...including the US. Actually found a US version I liked, by an American country singer (female) in the 1970s, I think. She sang it fast. Good song for touring musos in any case. Helps with singing it, I suppose.
re education...seem to remember articles here re learning to read...phonetic v 'whole of word' approaches. Apparently the latter is a left-wing kind of school...which doesn't work well. Maybe the teachers aren't linguistically trained so it suits THEM, rather than the children?
re older kids in kindie...think it's the opposite here...parents sneaking young kids into kindi for an 'advantage'. Always the problem, I suppose, of kids not born at the right time re finding right year to enter kindie. What is the rationale of the phrase "redshirt"...i.e. why that particular phrase? That 60m video worked but I didn't watch it...the ads at the start were really way too jerky. It's annoying when sites show you ads and at the end of them it tells you that you can't view what you actually wanted to watch!
re private schools...there is debate here whether the federal government should subsidise private schools. They don't need the money and public schools could do with more. Think I've heard of some private schools using the money to buy stables or whatnot!
re tech schools...I meant something that I've heard of...a high school with a vocational element to their curriculum. We don't use terms like "diploma" for high school results. Not sure if such tech schools still operate or not. They're not geared to provide a very academic schooling. We do have TAFES, which sort of sounds like what you mean by "tech schools". Australia has had a lot of international students here and they're starting to get burned now through dodgy providers...I'm guessing the more prestigious the school sounds, the dodgier it is...like a small office on a main street being the 'school'! Making up a name...stuff like the Cambridge School Of Business and Catering...or whatnot.
re Rattlin' bones as "classic rock"...yeah, bit weird! But I have problems with acts like Television or Patti Smith being called "punk"...I just think that anyone who played at CBGBs automatically gets called "punk"! If Doris Day played there, she'd be called "The godmother of punk"!
re Alcatrez...well, what you said resonates...I think the US networks have their eye on the main game...syndication...I think 100 episodes is the hurdle...make that many episodes then cancel, if the ratings are down.
No idea what the "Fae world" means! Hmm...re succubus...conspiracy theory of mine - or one I've stolen! - centuries ago boys/men who were caught after a wet dream had to 'redeem' themselves...they were attacked by a succubus! Not their fault!
re other tv shows...either not heard of them or they are here but I don't watch them. Have heard good things about The Walking Dead but that's pay tv...same goes for True Blood...maybe if they go commercial I might watch them but commercials here stuff viewers around a lot so not sure if I'd take the plunge. I've created a list on my profile page here the other day re tv shows of recent times I'm into. Am annoyed at SBS TV here showing back to back episodes of Mad Men...last night was a triple header...saw two but will watch finale next week. Not a fully fledged commercial network so not sure they the Hell they would do that type of thing...with commercials, they only do that when they want to ditch a series quickly. Guessing it will be years before SBS shows the 4th series...behind pay tv.
I did see a promo for two Japanese 'reality' shows on SBS but haven't watched as yet...looked typically mad Japanese type of stuff.
re Danger 5...I suppose it put in mind tv shows like Thunderbirds and those other sci-fi type shows from the 1960s or 1970s perhaps...has a Thunderbirds type of aesthetic, so, in that sense it looks really cheap...with high production values, if that makes sense. The aeroplanes have fishing lines holding them up...it's all very kitsch. I'm quite taken with the blonde in that series. Don't mind the series...not sure how long I'll watch it for...it really makes no difference what order the episodes are shown in.
I am liking the Australian sit-com Woodley. It's laugh out loud funny at times. Physical humour involved, so maybe you need to like that kind of form of comedy. It's good if you don't have high expectations of it. Can't see clips of scenes I'd like to post, but some of the ones I like are ingenious...maybe a la that Micallef stuff I posted years ago here re "the drunk"...remember him?
Anyway, here's an official trailer...not what I'd want to highlight, but still...actually, maybe this is slightly better...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ovby4aiAg
If that doesn't work...unofficial clip...same as above, I think...or similar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzFWKl2guVE
re Old Man Emu...don't remember kookaburra noises in that! Do remember him sort of yodelling...you mean that? Speaking of kookaburras...that the traditional based song Men At Work were sued over, successfully. Don't get how a song based on a traditional song has copyright to it. Reminds me of that recent episode of 30 Rock re how Disney copyrights folk stories by having a stupid talking parrot in all their movies based on these fairy tales!
P.S. where does your ID come from? "Ryu" was a character in the Street Fighter arcade games, wasn't he?
re TISM...that song was a bit extreme, wasn't it? This is a catchier tune of theirs...not sure if the US cultural references are too old for you though...has a bit of a classic rock riff vibe to it:
TISM - (He'll never be an) Ol' man River
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-mLIdLZZeI
The lyrics make me laugh, especially the punch line to the start of the song. Quite prescient line on Michael Jackson too!
Also get a laugh when I read the track listings on albums of theirs.
- re your comment re Revolution in the classroom...what do you mean re it being a joke re cutting politicians' jobs? You mean that's unlikely to happen even though it's desirable?
- One other show I'm watching, which was after a fave series of mine - Arrested Development - is Portlandia. Like Woodley, it's best to have manageable expectations for it, but maybe it's picking up...enjoyed the last ep, especially the intro, where two bill posters have an escalating war. Did enjoy the previous ep too, re dumpster diving...amused by the woman's "Aaaaw!" noise...maybe that's the kind of humour Australia does, e.g. "Kath and Kim". Have noticed that "Aaaaw!" thing more, recently, on US tv, e.g. Family Guy and 30 Rock. Bit of a meme there now, re parodying the people who say that? Liked the Portlandia one best, anyway...really laying it on thick...like Americans do when you offer them Vegemite!
P.S. re our "I can't believe that's news" discussion...I can't believe that the following tripe ran on a network...the end of the world is nigh!
http://bit.ly/HLDfbH Same link as below:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/no-heat-on-mcdonalds-in-tv-g rilling/story-e6frf96f-1226316860463
Which reminds me, I saw a docu on the non-commercial ABC TV once which was bs too...thought it was an expose on the Orange people, but it was a puff piece! Found the title: "Rajneesh: Spiritual Terrorist". Sounds like a no nonsense documentary exposing this cult. Like I said, it was a puff piece. I'm guessing that the ABC just saw the title of the docu and bought it on spec! It really bothers me that bs like this is making its way onto tv...be even more worrywing if supposedly 'quality' networks, like the ABC showed stuff like this...but the channel 9 screened docu is worrying too.
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You can't create a post without a body
Re IMDB e-mail updates- You mentioned in a PM that IMDB had sent two different notices about me PMing you. The same thing happened to me on two of your PMs once I turned notifications on. The first one just said there was a PM there and the second one had the title of the PM in the e-mail subject line. With it sending two notifications to you it might have been from me previewing the message before it was sent. I remember I had urls in it and wanted to make sure they were marked correctly. I don’t have IMDB connected to any facebook or twitter accts. I’m one of those people that prefers to have that stuff separate in case I do something on one site that I don’t want everyone I know on another knowing what I did. Too much crap on the net and if someone brings it up later it is easier knowing how to deal with it if you know exactly who should have access to it and when it was done. There are some sites I flat out won’t join because they only way they let you on is by registering with a twitter or facebook acct.
Re urls shortners- haven’t used them in the past because didn’t know they were available for the average user. Only places I had seen them previously were from official type sites and twitter. Twitter is supposed to automatically shorten your links for you, and never needed it beyond that. Thanks for the heads up on it.
Re degrees- most of the job openings over here seem to deal with business, but areas like marketing or finance. Economics degrees in general don’t seem to be of much more use than a general arts degree. Took one course in econ and though it was a bunch of bs. The models always seemed to be based on right now info, which doesn’t really do any good when something goes wrong. As for academics, most unis aren’t hiring, and the few positions they are aren’t hiring history. Add to that most of my courses were in medieval Europe while the current trend is Latin America. Read a story the other day where some MIT people think that there is going to be a global depression in 2030. Maybe the business degrees will be useless.
edit: Maybe you're on to something with your business degree theory, and maybe not doing business wasn't such a bad thing.
http://tinyurl.com/78asgrq
Re American history boring- think it has to deal with hearing the same portion almost every year, and not having good teachers. It always seemed like in grade school we’d get to the US Civil War and that would be it. There was one year I remember doing anything past that in US history, but the teacher wasn’t very good and because we were testing at the end of the year we had to get through a lot. More quantity over quality in that case. That was an IB course, though. Knew someone in a regular upper-level history course and their history was the same old that we always had. Even my American history professors in college I found boring. The first one was just a freshman US hist course, so kind of expected, but the second one was a senior level, and that one was mainly battles, treaties, and who was on which side – everything that people outside the discipline point to and say this is why I don’t like history. None of my other hist courses were like that.
Is the Assassin’s Creed history actually history or something made up for the game? If it is actually history that is they kind of history that actually makes people interested in history, for the most part. There are some people that do actually like the more boring aspects. It always seems like people are trying to clean up history and make the heroes whiter than white, and the villains the most evil people to ever exist, and to take out the factor that everyone involved was actually human – no one was perfect and the “heroes” usually had more interesting secrets than the “villains.” The down and dirty, and usually more accurate, part of history is the fun part. The cleaned up, typically politically correct, version taught in schools rarely does justice to what was going on or to those involved.
Re public transit- on time being within 6 minutes sounds great to me! The only reliable public transportation in the US is the system in New York City. Don’t know how on schedule they run, but do know that there are a bunch of New Yorkers that go their whole lives without a driver’s license. Don’t know much about the LA system other than there is a small subway type system. Their traffic is horrible and mostly gridlocked all day, but then so is NYC despite having, what I would guess, to be the best in the country. There was a push a few years back in the city I live for people to use the public transport buses and, on a GOOD day, they were a minimum of 30 minutes behind schedule. Introduced an express line that didn’t make as many stops to try to deal with the problem and that tends to run at least 15 minutes behind. More people did start taking the bus as the price of everything went up, gas being one of the worst, and now there are problems of people stealing or breaking into the cars at the bus stop parking lots. Doesn’t sound like much incentive to me, unless you’re lucky and the bus stops close to where you live.
Re Facebook- novelty wearing off maybe? In the news the past couple of weeks have been companies asking for people’s login info for facebook and twitter in job interviews or once a person had been hired. I can understand, to a very small degree, if the person was constantly on either using company resources, but other than that I don’t think it is any of their business. The companies claim that it is a good way to see what a person is like, but just because a person acts one way on their off time doesn’t mean that is how they will behave at work. There was one case I remember reading where a company went in and changed some of what a person had posted, think it dealt with a comment or picture. Personal belief is that an employee works for an employer for whatever hours, and during that time they represent the company and I understand that they should meet company standards, etc. Off the clock, the company does not have the right to tell you what you can and can’t do. Period.
Re game giftcards- they let you buy virtual stuff in the game. Like in one you can buy a new outfit for your character. In another in might be some decoration for your main game screen that is only available to purchase with real money instead of earning through the game. I don’t see the draw. It’s not like many of the games have generation staying power, and most have really high security restriction as far as interacting with other people because they mainly advertise to kids 8-14 or so.
Re big girls- flipping through channels, think two nights ago, and saw show touching on this where it was the girl’s goal in life to hit 1000lbs, to be completely dependent on another person for everything, and not able to so much as roll over in bed. She was currently living with a guy who supported this goal and was okay with her staying home all day and doing nothing but eating to gain weight. Then the woman claimed she was gaining weight the healthy way, but everything they showed her eating was junk food or unhealthy take out. The most nutritional thing she ate was a dozen eggs in one sitting.
Re welfare- there is some middle class welfare over here, which are usually people playing the system, and are the kind that piss people off, like the girl that won the lottery but still thought she deserved the food stamps, or the people trying to pay off the million dollar beach house. If people actually need assistance, I don’t have a problem with it. My issue comes when people are pissing salaries on a flashy new car, premium cable, a big screen tv, $200 jeans, etc. and then claiming they can’t pay utilities or rent or grocery bills, or that think welfare is something they deserve for sitting around doing nothing and not even trying to help themselves.
Re asset rich income poor- have heard the phrase. Typically you hear it more referring to people that are just starting out and have over spent themselves trying to get all of the dream at once, i.e. a three bedroom loft in a trendy neighborhood and a car that matches what they want their job to be in five years, instead of the one bedroom apartment they can afford that isn’t in such a trendy neighborhood and keeping their car from college. The people that have bought a place and can’t afford to buy furniture for it because all the money is going to pay the bills.
Right now the trend over here is to try and revitalize areas that have been pretty much abandoned due to crime at one time in the past or just run down, so you don’t see too many older folks having the issue that their house is increasing in value, but more likely to go down because it is no longer what people want.
Re learning to read- how do you need to be linguistically trained to teach phonetically? All you have to do is teach what letter combinations sound like. For that all you should need is to have a word in front of you. True linguistics is a royal pain in the @ss to learn, but what is needed to teach reading phonetically isn’t a big deal. Phonetic reading isn’t 100% because if you wind up with words that have a different language origin that what you’re used to, pronunciation might be a bit off, but on an average day it works better than ‘whole word’ approach.
Re redshirt- I know it is a term used in college sports, so I’m guessing that is where they took it from. For college sports teams, a player can only compete for four years, no matter how many years it takes to get through school. A common practice is to take a first year student and “redshirt” him/her which allows that student to practice with the team and build skill and/or muscle up, and then have better experience when they start competing their second year at college. And, yes, there are quite a few students that take five years to get a bachelor’s.
I say him/her but I’m not actually sure how often it happens with girls. With guys I know it is used because guys are growing and bulking up so much at that age whereas girls are more mature physically by that age.
Re Alcatraz- had the finale last week, and haven’t heard one way or the other if going to be renewed. Ratings were dodgy so not holding my breath. That is part of the problem with only syndication in mind. Few stories can support the 100 ep ideal (though I don’t think it is 100 eps anymore, too many shows that I know don’t have 100 eps are already rerunning on other channels) and you loose viewers because the show goes no where, and then it gets cancelled. Don’t get why studios wouldn’t prefer to go out on a high note. Would think you’d do better post-airing sales that way.
Re Fae- Fae is an old Celtic term referring to beings like fairies, demons, and other supernatural, etc.
Re True Blood- on premium pay tv here on channel we don’t get. Watched it online for two seasons and got fed up. Have read the books it’s based on since they started coming out and enjoyed them, but when they worked it over for tv it became all soft core porn and the f word was every other word out of most characters mouth. I watch shows for stories or characters and found True Blood out for more shock value than anything else. Yawn.
Re Walking Dead- thought you were getting sick of zombies? On a channel we have, but when started conflicted with another show I watch, and don’t care for zombies.
Did start watching a show called Monster Man that is about a special effects studio that does old school effects, ie building the monsters instead of just doing CGI. More interesting than I first thought it would be. Main artist dresses like a crazy, evil goth, but is kind of a teddy bear. His daughter who also works there can be a bit of a bitch at times, though.
Re Woodley- looks funny. Looks like they have people that know how to do physical humour, which goes a long way in making it work.
Re Old Man Emu- didn’t re-listen, but remember he introduced the noise he was going to make as a kookaburra noise and then made a really funny sound.
Re ID- horoscope/astrology, no games/music/show etc references
Re TISM – (He’ll Never Be An) Ol’ Man River- very energetic group. Definitely better than the Hitler song.
Re joke on cutting politicians jobs- meant you’ll never politicians doing anything that could threaten the disappearance of their own job position and very rarely see them do anything that would threaten another bureaucratic position even though it is desirable.
Re McDonalds news? story- Since when are news stories only one line long? That looks short enough to be a tweet, and certainly doesn’t deserve it’s own page, or did something go wrong I’m not aware of?
Re docu vs. puff pieces- I think it has also become about tricking viewers into watching something they wouldn’t normally. Certain types of people aren’t watching as much tv anymore because there is nothing on that interests them (same way certain people are going to the movies because most of it has been directed toward 18-28 year old males (wish I could remember where I read that story)). By making a program sound different than what it actually is you get those people back in front of a tv and hope they stick around. There was one show this happened to me where it had looked really good and was advertised one way, and then was pure crap in reality and really disappointed. Can’t remember for the life of me which show it was.
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re different messages for PMs...well, I think you bring up a related matter...sometimes you get a message notifying of a PM hours before (perhaps?) to actually receiving it. With you, I think that something different was going on...when you have someone in your "Friends" list, which I do with you (it's more direct in keeping tabs on our thread here), you can click on "Friends" to get a read out of the person's last activity on this site. Usually (hopefully) that read out co-incides with a new post here...or also usually a post of yours in another thread which doesn't interest me. But, what happened recently was your last activity in the Friends section not correlating with your posting activity. It MAY correlate with you PM someone ELSE...you been doing that a lot lately? I just hypothesised that MAYBE the Friends info also counted your activity at Other sites...which doesn't sound like the case...MAYBE Google activity is counted, IF you are logged in? A lot of these sites are owned by the one corporation, so they are interconnected. Have seen posts in specific boards here which complain about logging in to this site using Facebook or whatever and losing your entire post history...but, from memory, you haven't lost that info...it's all there under your USUAL IMDB log in.
On a related issue, I hear that Facebook tracks you online. So, a way to subvert their snooping on you is to devote a DIFFERENT browswer to using their site. Google is the same too, I think. E.g. you may want to use Firefox for regular browsing, but use Opera or whatnot to use Facebook or Google.
re URL shorteners...The Age's Green Guide tv lift-out had an article on this. Apparently you can make your own service too. Issue is you need the site to be a stayer, to keep your URLs live. bit.ly and tinyurl seem to have legs. Any current site is good for the short term, but if you want to revisit a link in future, problems may ensue.
re global depression in 2030...gee, and here I was thinking that we might get one NOW! Greece has been in the news a lot recently. Have heard of something called an MBS or something...some kind of business related course...not a degree though, I don't think. Think I've heard that there are 'issues' with that...that it might not be much chop. Do remember archiving a few articles from The Age's business section calling out economists' theories. If you're interesting, I suppose I could try and dig them out...stuff about how their theories have been contradicted by the real world. Hmm...there is a phrase about economics...The Dire Science? Something like that...implying it's not a real science or something. Saw and enjoyed Margin Call recently...how assumptions used in trading stopped working...caused the global financial crisis.
re that business ed article you posted...sounds like the sort of spiel you'd expect from the Arts faculty! The kind of critical thinking skills businesses say they want is the kind of skill the Arts faculties sell themselves on. Related issue...sheer numbers. Apparently - in Australia at least - there are as many law students now as there are lawyers...or there was...could be even more now. So, a law degree may become a Big Mac kind of degree...pervasive...and cheap to employ.
Saw an episode last night of Australian Story on ABC TV. It was an update of a story I hadn't seen there before...Ric Richardson...he invented something for online purchasing security and Microsoft stole it from him (years ago I saw a good movie called The Pirates Of Silicon Valley, which made absurd the outrage of Bill Gates railing against people stealing 'his' intellectual property...seeing as MicroSoft pretty much stole 'their' idea from Xerox!). Richardson is an inventor...you have to admire him...not sure if he school learned smart or naturally smart. I'd like to know if there is an education which you could have which made you like him!
re history, like I said, our former conservative Prime Minister spoke of a "black armband" view of history he wanted to get rid of. Is American history taught as the shining story of the white man's progress there? You learn of white's starting the practice of scalping natives? Biological warfare against them? Infecting blacks with STDs without their knowledge as a Nazi style experiment? It's that kind of stuff our PM didn't want taught...we should only get to learn of the 'good' stuff.
re Assassin's Creed history...I THINK that they actually used historical information* (* = see end note)...but of a gobsmacking sort. Of course, they had a lot of game related bs conspiracy theory history too...seems a mixture. I'd be interested in verifying the things I suspect were true. Years ago I heard on a radio show, I think, something about a particular 'founding father' of the US...he was quite against the usual lauded 'founding fathers'...saw them as undemocratic or something...quite foggy on this issue...maybe he thought that they were entrenching the power of the elites in the US, I think. Forget his name...apparently he didn't sign the declaration of independence on grounds like that. Ring any bells? THAT'S interesting history!
re public transport...Hell, I'd be HAPPY with a service which was 24 hours behind!
A new ticketing system has also been a financial burden on our state...the old conservative government got rid of conductors and wasted over a billion dollar, I think (or total cost, all up) on new conductor-less system with 'smart' card technology. Recently old ticket system scrapped and huge queues as people have to use the new 'smart' system...which keeps tabs on you. Australia has some of the most expensive cities in the world to live in...I think maybe even more expensive than the US...new suburbs now being build...with really poor infrastructure...if they're lucky!
re Facebook...works the other way too...a major sponsor of an AFL club over here had a CEO who posted derogatory comments on such a site...maybe FB or Twitter...he said he was just talking to mates or whatnot, but the club dropped him as a sponsor...they'd been having a bad week with similar news stories about it.
re game giftcards...oh...they sounds lame! I've recently been playing Metal Gear Solid 4 on PS3...downloaded quite a bit of stuff...for free.
re asset rich income poor...over here I think I've mainly heard it with reference to retired people...they own their own home, which is worth too much to get welfare...maybe they bought it before an area became gentrified or something, and it was an era before mandatory superannuation, which we have here now. So, they're deemed ineligible for welfare should they require it. Over here and in places like Greece, governments are seeking to raise the pension age to save money. Talk also of working longer into your life.
Hmm...post GFC I did hear of residential properties in the US selling for $1. I thought it too much of a risk to invest! Can you imagine? Have heard that many of these neighbourhoods now ghost towns and people stealing pipes for metal...sometimes even with people still living there! Might have read that people died as a result...cold or something...
>>> re US property risk, I saw an episode of "7:30" the other day which covered it...some Australian companies are scamming Australian buyers via US laws which don't protect the rights of purchasers...here's a transcript/video link if that kind of stuff interests you...the law which rips off Australian buyers relates to Limited Liability Companies:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3488301.htm
re phonetics teaching...well, I suppose that a linguistically trained teacher would be better able to articulate how to make sounds...how to articulate the sounds, if you will.
re "A common practice is to take a first year student and “redshirt” him/her"...what does "redshirt" mean in that case?
re me getting sick of zombies...what makes you say that? Not that into them in any case...seen some Romero movies and not a fan boy...did see a movie at a film festival here and fans got all dressed up, which was cool!
re Woodley...bit behind on that...saw my PVR of the funeral ep...a classic! Don't know if you've ever seen Mr. Bean, but it's more physical than that. It's not high class acting or anything, but it can be laugh out loud funny.
re your ID...okay, Libra makes sense...how does the Ryu come into it? Just btb, not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I saw on a commercial news network once a story on a work of art outside of the library...looked like the corner of a large building poking out of the footpath...it had a word fragment on it "Libra". The reporter mentioned something about this being Latin for "book" or whatever...and I remember thinking "No, you idiot! The building is a library...it's sunk so low into the footpath you can only see the "Libra" and not the "ry"!
re TISM...don't own anything by them...but reading their album or song titles is good for a laugh...e.g. their album "Great truckin' songs of the Renaissance". I once posted on this site asking for suggested songs which fit that bill...rather literal lot here! Apparently there were no trucks in the Renaissance, according to them!
re joke on politician...I thought you were showing a cynical side there...as in you want politicians to do something but it's a joke that they would. I didn't get the feeling that what I think you wanted the politicians to do was something that they actually needed to do...cut jobs or whatever. Memory foggy now on this point though. It's real Yes Minister type stuff though...surest way to stop a politician from threatening bureaucratic jobs is to have a senior bureaucrat say that such a decision would be "courageous"!
re McDonald's story...looks like you walked into Murdoch's paywall! What I was questioning was the very screening of that documentary on tv. What the Hell is it doing on tv? The news story mentioned the maker of the documentary saying that they had final say on who appeared in the documentary...McDonalds couldn't overrule them...BUT, the docu was PAID for by McDonalds! It basically reeks of advertorial being passed off as journalism. I think that this link may work for you...
www.tvtonight.com.au/2012/04/producer-defends-mcdonalds-grilling.html
Media Watch last night dealt with paywalls...interesting for the fact that fantasy football is a major player in their attempt to 'monetise' readers!
re you being tricked into viewing something...have heard that most people nowadays get their news from news satire shows, like John Stewart...younger people here probably get it from a show like The Project, which I don't watch. Getting people to watch stuff because it's funny, not news. Maybe that's something?
Had a listen to "Old man emu" again and noticed his kookaburra impression...not sure that he was aiming for realism there! It was so late in the video that I thought you had been mistaken...thought you might have had in mind the bit at around 1:52...which is called "eefing and eiffing", I think. Probably an American style vocal but Australian Rolf Harris is the most famous exponent of it...at least here and probably in Britain too! Did read that Old Man Emu was a top ten hit here in Australia! Back to Rolf Harris...he's famous here and in the UK...some vids you may enjoy:
Jake the peg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS-itkO9ia8
The court of King Caractacus (with Basil Brush)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk1T8kGt0u4
Stairway to Heaven (later covered by Led Zeppelin)...this tv show had various acts do this song...fun...Beatles style, Elvis style, etc...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPOIy4Kb9M4
Not sure how relevant this is to you, but the following programme was popular here and in the UK...a UK show...shown in a kids' timeslot here, but in the evening in the UK. Rolf Harris is the subject of the episode. There is a You Tube which I just saw of the bearded guy discussing the time blonde one snubbed Rolf in an elevator
The Goodies (I didn't realise it was the full ep...this is 3/3...if you're interested)...what the Hell...I'll give the link for the first episode and you can't follow it if you like...be interested in how well you think the show translates for US viewers...I think The Goodies toured here recently...or maybe just two of them! Like some of their music too! Including the incidental music in the series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E029fRvA8U
Did hear that Rolf pioneered the World music scene with his song "Sun arise". Surprised to learn that this song was covered by Alice Cooper! And I am quite partial to his song "Two little boys" which was a hit, especially in the UK, I think. Did I link to Rolf's funny version of "I've been everywhere" for the UK? If not...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErZT_jLjiuI
P.S. I thought that this article may amuse you...it relates to two threads of our discussion here:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3864
edit in: Since we've discussed PSAs before, the following ones have amused here...it's not exactly the same as I've seen on tv, but there is overlap...I think that are a sort of 'highlights' reel of previous campaigns...I'll give two links...the official You Tube site has the video as the one on the main page, I think (for Manufacturing and Farming) whilst their official site has a sequence of videos...it might be just the first couple in that which are like what I see over here...maybe try that one, if it works:
Look for the embedded You Tube at the bottom of the page...the first couple, I think, are relevant
http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/wsinternet/worksafe/sit etools/news
or
http://bit.ly/HEH3Ny
http://www.youtube.com/user/worksafevictoria
P.S. Found a You Tube for a song I first heard from a cd I borrowed in a library...from memory it was by the band:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgXqubk6tYE
Wonder how many songs existed like this before this time...they were there before Weird Al!
* P.P.S. I found a cryptic note of mine from Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood..."Marg Thatcher letter to Yeltsin". Didn't make more of a note than that...did try googling a phrase like that...only really came up with info via a game related site, which makes it seem that their extra information implies that the factoid is probably fiction...this site here (I think that the game didn't give this context, so you wondered if it was real...if I find other notes I'll look into it and let you know):
http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin
Below is a non-game related entry, and it MAY have a relation to what is in the game, re "Examples"...not sure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonclass
*** >>> I actually remembered something from the game! The game has actual video, I think, of American inventor Thomas Edison's electrocution of an elephant! So, that part looks actually factual/historical. The conspiracy theory - or it may actually be a fact - is this...Edison wanted to destroy an alternative method of generating electricity, coming out of Europe (to do with AC or DC...one of the two). By killing (?) the elephant with the European (?) method of generating electricity, he could kill it's widespread use (mainly in the US?). Furthermore, the European model had electricity as a publically owned asset, I think. So, the conspiracy theory (?) is that Edison, being a capitalist, wanted to destroy a socialist (?) model of electricity generation...to monetise it for the elite...or something like that. True? Conspiracy theory? It's in this kind of way that the game mixes fact and fiction in interseting ways...some parts of it are easy to spot...e.g. the stuff about aliens from outer space controlling human evolution...or is it?
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Re PM alerts- for the most part this is the only discussion I participate in on IMDB anymore. Every now and again I’ll post about air dates on one other show, but that is pretty much it. Found a lot of IMDB post had just deteriorated to nothing very interesting, and the shows that I watch anymore don’t really have activity here. As for google, while I have a google acct and a Youtube acct (sadly owned by google), the google acct I’m never logged into and only have because it was needed for a class project collab at uni. YT I’m logged into but don’t post anything and comment on another vid maybe once every three years or so. Doesn’t really matter because the IMDB acct isn’t connected to any other media acct; just the required e-mail. Well, put it this way: I haven’t knowingly authorized it to be connected to any other media acct. I’ve seen some trying to link everything in new de facto settings where you have to disconnect everything manually, but think it may have just been a fluke.
Re sites tracking- Google was in the news here a few years ago about how they track people’s search history. Claims of only using the data to try and help their customers find what they’re looking for faster and not really creating a profile about them. My response is you can’t do the former without doing the later. Facebook seems to have taken some random heat from different people over different issues lately, but don’t see it making any impact. People are too addicted. Personally find facebook a chore. Took a couple days off from the computer recently and found it very freeing on a certain level.
Re economy/business- I think I’ve heard of something called a Master’s of Business Science (MBS). Don’t know what it means, and may be one of those throw away from one of those “colleges” that are more a joke than anything else. As far as the economic courses go and the economic theories, I find most of them ridiculous. Took one econ course and anything more complicated than supply and demand I don’t know how they can apply many of their theories. Most just seem too simplified for use in the real world.
Re business article- My problem with what the article is saying is that people with arts degrees and not business aren’t going to understand the nuts and bolts, so probably screw up more than those with business. Or you’d have to hire the arts as the innovative thinker and have a business person teamed with them so that the finance part would work. Waste of money. Plus haven’t seen any business related job postings where they’re willing to train anyone, which means you’d need the business degree just to get an interview.
Re Richardson- people like that usually have an innate talent to start with. Granted it’s nurtured by learning, but most computer/web inventors that really change things tend to just have an easy understanding of how stuff like that operates that is almost as easy as breathing for those guys.
Re education- Native American stuff tends to get skimmed over more than any other, especially those in what became USA and Canada. Aztec and Inca tend to be talked about the most. Black history starts up with the slaves and gets intertwined from there. Starts getting hit really hard with causes of the Civil War. Granted Civil War and sometimes Reconstruction seems to be as far as history gets in grade schools. Come to think of it, can’t remember much history being taught at public school until 4th grade. Know we had it in 5th, but don’t recall what was covered (royally disliking the teacher may have something to do with that). Only reason ever got past Civil War was because of being in IB, and what was covered was mainly the broader reaching events, i.e. WWI, WWII, Great Depression, but starting with Great Depression and going through late 90s wasn’t taught the best. For Great Depression we were just given a book to read and had some class discussions. The alphabet soup of programs and gov agencies made it impossible to keep track of anything in it. After that we had a teacher that it was her first year covering the material of WWII through 90s, and again it was mostly books that you’re more likely to find in a uni course (at least over here). Think they had that backwards. We could have handled reading from pilgrim landing through Civil War/Reconstruction probably just fine because of the over exposure in previous years, but it would have really helped to have someone teach and emphasize the later stuff since we’d never had it before.
As far as the really darker side of history post WWII, no one ever teaches that in grade schools. There was a lot going on in the 60s and into the 70s of drug experiments and eugenics going on with anyone deemed “undesirable” which tended to be the poor, physically disabled (usually more those born so than caused by accident), mentally challenged (be it Down Syndrome, autism, or something that on sets later like schizophrenia, bi polar, etc), kids that wound up under government care for one reason or another, etc. that the average teacher will not touch. Sometimes if a kid in class knows about it or brings it up and you have a decent teacher there might be some instruction, but the average history class doesn’t touch on it. High school psychology classes I think touch more of it if any history of mental health care is taught. Some of it has to be touched on in order to explain the different schools of thought, but even then only the advanced classes get into some of the really screwed up things that went on.
Re Assassin’s Creed- second link under your PPS had something to do with a coding system that may/may not have replaced the Dewy Decimal with something related to BBC, and with Thatcher and Yeltsin having overlapping careers there’s going to exist communication between them, and that is all the wikipedia link sites. As for the founding father thing, the only one that is ever taught as being strange and different was Benjamin Franklin, but I’m nearly 100% sure that isn’t who you’re describing. Also sure there were people that fit what you’re describing better but they don’t make the average history book, and given I don’t have much interest it isn’t something I pursue on my own.
If they use a lot of conspiracy theories they’re probably more likely to pull those from actual sources than anything else, i.e. so many people spend so much time pulling together different info and say there’s a conspiracy that a conspiracy theory practically exists about everything. Alien technology and alien interventionists in human population alone is a pretty big field. Had enough popularity over here for a bit that the History channel had a series that was nothing but these people explaining their views of how different parts of human history and event were shaped by aliens, everything from pyramids to being at the birth and death of Jesus to the Black Death actually being caused by aliens and so on. The Black Death conspiracy is one of my favs simply because a lot of it seemed to be based on the fact that people only drew literal representations in art at the time so there was no way the grim reaper type skeletons depicted could be from the artist’s imagination, but were the beings he actually saw. Don’t understand why these people think that someone can figure out how to draw like that, but can’t draw what is in his imagination. People have been making stories up for millennia, so why not drawings? The further argument is that for some reason it would have been physically impossible for the disease to spread as fast as it did due to how society was set up back then, so something else had to be helping kill everyone. One of the few conspiracy/alien theories that I cannot for the life of me figure out how someone came up with it.
Re public transport/infrastructure- right now in my city they’re trying to get a street car put in that runs down one street downtown, with the argument being that it will help people get around and improve the economy. Problem is one end starts in a so-so area that is trying to be revitalized with so-so results, runs through an area of town most people won’t go to because of crime (and if they do they make sure it is daylight hours and that isn’t even guaranteed) and ends in an area that is fairly touristy but still needs the support of locals. And most of the businesses that are on the street it would run don’t want it due to increased taxes that would drive most out of business. Gov seemed kind of gun-ho about it, so we’ll see.
Re online comments- people need to learn to set their privacy settings. Would really fix so many of these problems. And people need to re-learn what privacy is. People shouldn’t be under the microscope all the time; it’s not healthy.
PS3 online/Xbox online- thought there were some pay things for games there as well. Like pretty sure you can rent stuff, but thought they too had some of the pay things mentioned before. Maybe just for games aimed at similar audience as those of the social media sites?
Re pension age raise- think that is everywhere nowadays. Think most people have already figured out they’re going to have to work longer. Age group I’m with, something like over half of us are unemployed or underemployed. Way that is going we’re all going to be working until we just drop dead on the job one day.
Re $1 properties- heard about those a few years ago, but don’t remember much about the story. May have been foreclosed homes that the banks jut wanted off of their hands. Haven’t seen/heard anything like that for awhile.
Re pipe stealing- A/C units here get hit a lot with people stealing the copper out of them. Thieves take it from any place they can, occupied or not.
Re property risk 7.30 story- sounds like an international flip this house. In the few years before the housing bust a lot of amateurs started flipping houses, where they buy a fixer upper – or something that basically needed to be completely gutted – made improvements and then sell it for profit. Problem was most of the people doing it were relying on contractors to get everything done on time and knew little of home reno themselves. Usually overpriced the houses when they put them on the market, too, and had to bring down the price to get them to sell. Some people did okay, others lost a lot, and then those that knew what they were doing made a killing. The problem with doing something like that overseas is you really have to trust who is in charge of everything, and is not something I’d do if I hadn’t known the person for years or if their credentials didn’t check out. Buying something to rent and be an overseas landlord is even worse. The companies in the story set off red-flags just by trying to sell anything in Detroit. Even before the collapse Detroit was horrible, and definitely NOT someplace you’d want to be in the position of landlord. Other problem is that why the housing market was doing well a lot of new construction was going up and there are still some areas that are over built for the number of people seeking. Not too far from where I live there is a group of about 8 townhouses that it looks like the developer originally intended to build more, but only like one or two of them filled with buyers. There were signs out for years trying to get people in them, and I think they just started renting them. Can see why they were having issues though. The townhouses themselves were nice (least from the outside), but there were across the street from apartments that aren’t the best, and the schools the kids would go to were only so-so.
Re phonetic teaching- if a teacher can’t do something as simple as describe how their mouth is positioned when making a sound, I’d have little hope for the rest of their teaching abilities. If all else fails make the sound again under the pretense of demonstration and take note of how you do it and then describe.
Re redshirt- means that the student doesn’t play in competitive games their first year at college. They’re put through practice so that they can grow and be more prepped to play competitively starting their second year of college.
Re zombies- thought you said something about ready for the craze to end when you posted the cannibal cartoon.
Re ID- the ryu part is still horoscope, just more convoluted to how it came about. Got into anime about the same time all the sites were gaining momentum that needed nicknames and ids and have to register to participate instead of single use sign-ins. In Chinese horoscope, I’m a dragon, but didn’t like how libra dragon sounded, or how the Chinese word for dragon worked with it, libra long. Was picking up some Japanese from anime, liked the way ryu sounded and the way it worked with libra.
Funny you mentioned the library story in connection to this. When I was at uni for a class that had to use Google documents for I had to make a google acct, and used libra ryu because I thought I’d use it later for non school related things, but google didn’t (still might not) allow the use of any of the symbols that are usu used for spaces, so I just put libra ryu together with no spaces. When talking with the group in class someone pronounced it library U. If I had seen that originally I don’t think I’d have used it. I’m a book nerd in many ways, but library U goes way too far into nerdom.
Re literal IMDBers- have noticed that, and ones that don’t have much of a sense of humour. With sarcasm I can understand sometimes not being able to pick up on it, but overall it is sad.
Re McDonald’s Get Grilled- first I’d seen of it was your post, and the story linked to was just a sentence. Hardly the first time, though that something was called a docu and in reality just an advert for the company. Besides, whenever there is a lot of supposedly behind the scenes info about big companies like McD’s I automatically assume that the company has some kind of stake in it and looking for a ‘yeah us’ bent to the story, otherwise people wouldn’t get the access they do.
Re news satire shows- it has become news as entertainment. I don’t watch John Stewart or any of them with any regularity, but from time to time I see parts of their shows, and the way it is presented there tends to make me think more about the story than in just a regular news program, not that I think that is what happens with most of their regular audience. With the normal news over here you get these reporters that are always trying to be very dramatic and inflect certain words to make the story tug on this or that emotion, but to me they always come across as uncaring jackasses that are just glad for the story. (Pretty sure we’ve discussed it here before where they’re reporting some really sad story and acting mildly upset and the next instant they’re on to something perky.) I like print news; then I don’t has some annoying anchor trying to inflect words a certain way trying to tell me how I should feel about the story.
Re language log- remember that story from when it first broke over here. Account I read of it had the kid posting the tweet at 2 something in the morning, so unless the school can prove that he broke into the building just to tweet that, I don’t know how any accusation can stand. Haven’t heard anything if the kid was able to go back. From different reports I read the school may have just been looking to get rid of him as he had several incidents in his record. Mostly just attention grabbing stuff that I’m sure the students were okay with, but the school just took a hard line and punished him.
Can’t remember if I mentioned this story here before, but there was an incident over here where a girl was on a school field trip to a state capitol where they were hearing a politician speak and while listening to the politician the girl tweeted some kind of insult about him. People that work for the guy found the tweet and were demanding an apology.
http://bit.ly/I2j2cT
re Rolf Harris- Really like Jake the Peg, and always have to give props to someone can go as fast as he could with The Court of King Caractacus. Found his version of Stairway to Heaven better than Zeppelin (though couldn’t bring myself to all 8 mins of the Zeppelin version). The Goodies ep I found to be okay, but my biggest problem was not knowing any of the people they were mentioning.
Re PSAs- interesting approaches. Try get the higher up to take responsibility.
Re Servin’ USA song- imagine there have been songs like this as long as people have been making music, and as long as they can get away with making fun of someone. Sadly, though, spoofs are usually very ill preserved in history. Maybe that’s finally changed with the internet though.
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You remind me of an interesting point...I'd like to know which company owns which company so I can make sure that there's no chance of info in one account being syphoned off to the company with a reputation for 'monetising' their user info. I have seen an ability to log into this site with Facebook...not sure of the ownership structure there. Have seen one person post on this site saying that when they loggied in with their Facebood ID here all their old information was gone...but apparently it's still there, so long as you log on in with your usual ID. I mean, the person was worried that they'd lost all their posting history or something...they'd be even more worried, perhaps, if they had posted extensive reviews here or something.
As for these corporations...did come across an article on Google doing evil or something recently...not sure if I made a note on it...but something similar brought up in the following article, at the end...I'll give the link and the relevant quote:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/google-cloud-descends-at-last-20120509-1ybp4.html
I noticed this new feature from tinyurl so I'll make that the link for the article...
http://preview.tinyurl.com/7qp8pvc
If you do plan to use Google Drive, however, we suggest you make sure you are happy with Google's Terms of Service (bit.ly/yIA4qt). While you retain ownership of your intellectual property rights, when you upload content, you give Google and ''those we work with'' a worldwide licence to ''use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works, communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content''.
Depending on what you create, that might drive you away from Google Drive.
Re Google Drive- hasn’t Google come under attack in the past for infringing on ownership of stuff like this? Or am I thinking of one of the other cloud type devices? Personally I don’t trust any of the cloud-type devices. It just seems like it would be too easy to hack the company server and gain access to everything stored on the hard drives the cloud info is stored on. Can imagine the law suits now. Also seems like it could be another back door into people’s computers. Guess I’m slightly paranoid when it comes to stuff like that, and if I want to back up my computer for $100 I’ll buy an external drive that I can control.
Just read under the quote and it was Facebook I was thinking about as far as ownership dispute. For awhile there I think they were arguing that they held ownership of any photos uploaded to their site. The more that comes to light about all these companies policies the more glad I am that I’ve never gotten heavily involved with any personal info online.
Re backward engineered personalities- heard about that several years ago, and saw the 2006 date on the article, so that must have been about the same time, when Google was having issues the first time(?) around for keeping too much info on its users, but trying to claim that it wasn’t a privacy violation. Anyone with a bit of common sense could see that it was.
Re Google hacking- would like story link. How the hell is it legal for them to just drive down the street sucking info out of people’s computers?
Re tracking- I know on Firefox there is an option that supposedly tell sites that you don’t want to be tracked. On both our computers I had to turn it on manually, and don’t know how well it actually works.
Re degrees- most people in law start with some arts degree for their bachelor’s, and then as a masters get a law degree. There are some places that offer a pre-law program that I think just sort of transitions into the law program, sort of like a pre-med program goes into a med degree, but not 100% sure.
As for the two guys arguing that neither understood economics, I doubt it matters if either does. I decided while still taking the econ course that economics is one of those things that doesn’t matter in real life. Like you said, the “dismal science.”
Re Civic Studies- is a royal pain in the @ss and I’m glad I never had to take it. Lot of memorize different parts of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the various amendments, and then look at how it plays into society. Stuff that supposedly teaches you how to be a good citizen. In 5th grade we were made to memorize all of the states and their capitals. One test we did I think they had to be in alphabetical order. Could probably still do it if I had to, but then knew the info for some reason prior to 5th grade. Remember having to sit in the corner of the room with 28 other kids while the teacher made us come up with stupid sayings to remember the states and capitals, i.e. for Alaska, capital: Juneau (pronounced Jew-know); Ju-neau what the capital is? I’ll-ask-ya (said with a mild southern accent so that it runs together to sound like Alaska).
How did the DJ figure Australia as the 51st state?
Re Syphilis experiment- this falls within the time period of the government using people as lab rats for all sorts of things, mostly people that society didn’t really feel empathy toward, and given it was done in Alabama, I think it made it easier to get away with. While slavery was abolished, some of the share cropping practices were little better with people being indentured to the land and the owner with no means of moving away and barely scrapping by. Segregation was strictly enforced, and Jim Crow laws didn’t allow for many actual rights for the black people. Plus the Civil Rights movements didn’t get started until the 1960s. As for black people being part of the people working to keep the experiment going, over here at least, it is a complete fallacy that all black people feel united. Many times the black people that work in professional jobs don’t want to associate with the ones that have no issue living off of welfare.
Re conspiracy theories- satan in the smoke of the twin towers, I believe, was the crazy Christians idea that the US was being punished for sins and not believing in god. Another was that it was an act of evil so a demon joined in for fun. There is one that deals with it being part of the Revelation happening. All sorts of good fun theories that can be talked round and round and round in circles that get nowhere using normal logic.
The Jesus moving to India I heard kind of recently, think it was NatGeo or History; can’t remember which. The liquid mimicking death makes Jesus sound like Juliet from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, though I think there are one or two poisons that actually exist like that, just don’t ask me to try to name them. Maybe I heard about them on the program that heard the Jesus in India theory from.
Re street car- Technically tram and street car are the same thing. I tend to think of trams as designed to look more futuristic, though, and street-cars to look more like this:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/8x6zpab
Anyways, they are going ahead with the streetcar. We’ll see what happens
Re online comments and privacy- I think part of the problem is that most people don’t have common sense (saw a study several years ago that said only 7% of the world population had common sense). Really don’t understand the people that set up blogs that basically chronicle their entire life, and then get insulted when people start trolling them. For as long as the net has been around, there is no reason for people not to expect some @ssholes to show up on their sites.
Re flipping w/ contractors- people got greedy. They saw these other people making a bunch of money on it, and they wanted a cut of the profits. Amateurs just failed to realize how much work goes into it.
Re pipe stealing- about a week ago, heard a story where thieves had stolen the wiring right off of power line poles – some kind of special copper that worked well for really high voltage. So much of it was stolen out of one small rural town that almost every pole had had to have the wire replaced.
Re ID- I pronounce it Re You. For a bit I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it correctly, but finally found a couple reliable sources for hearing it pronounced. Don’t remember the library story, sorry.
Re books- I’ve been switching it up as to what I’ve been reading. Use to be a big romance reader, especially paranormal romance, but have gotten sick of the predictability. Still read a couple of the series that I started years ago, at least the ones that have more to them than just getting a guy and gal in bed together with a happily ever after. There is a series by English author Andy McDermott that is sort of archeological/mystery with a splash of conspiracy that I really like. Think the official name of the series is the Nina Wilde/Eddie Chase series, but not sure. Am trying some other authors that write similar types, but haven’t had a lot of luck yet. Just finished one that was pretty awful. Spent too much time trying to explain how the history tied into the storyline. There would literally be just pages of a character monologue to explain something, and not even entertaining story, just the “facts” that the reader would need to know.
Finally gave in and read the Hunger Games trilogy. Normally I don’t like to read books that have been hyped a lot, because, frankly I’ve found them to usually be very dull and poorly written. The Hunger Games pleasantly surprised me, though. Have The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Not sure if I’m going to like that.
There is a genre that seems to be emerging that, to the best of my knowledge is new, where people add supernatural elements to historical events. You wind up with some strange stories that can be quite entertaining. One I read had Shakespeare as a vampire. There was another one where Queen Elizabeth I was destined to be some kind of vampire slayer that was passed down through her mother’s line. The most well known example I can think of is Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. Haven’t read the book, but it has been turned into a movie that is coming out either this month or next over here.
Also reading some nonfiction about random topics. Current one is about how people hear music and frequencies and the different affects brain injuries or trauma can cause in hearing differences and how it is interpreted by the brain. When I picked it up I didn’t realize how much anatomy was in it. Think I’ve been working on it for over two months! Can only stand to read one chapter or two very short ones at a time.
Re print news- It is easier for me to ignore written words that are made to bend a story a certain way than it is to tune out a newscaster. Also, with print news can scan the story to get the necessary info.
Re girl v politician tweet- that fiasco was prior to the mess that is going on now, and it still disturbs me that the guy’s staff had nothing better to do than search twitter for mentions of him, and that some idiot couldn’t look at the where the tweet was coming from and decide that no action needed to be taken.
Re The Goodies- the South African clip was entertaining; watching how annoyed the tourism guy got. Very strange for someone from my generation to see anyone in blackface. Loved in the beginning how they kidnapped the old lady off the street. Too bad the rest of the ep isn’t up.
Re Sex with a Bearded Man- for supposedly being live it sounded very good. Maybe autotune? While the vocals were good, it reminds me of something Weird Al would sing – just kind of strange topic.
Re Shaddap You Face- didn’t understand the first verse, but found it entertaining. The fake Italian accent and the funny clothes made the song.
Re assisted communication- is this also called facilitated communication? Where a person with autism, MS, cerebral palsy, etc communicate by guiding a person’s hand to cards or pictures? Google didn’t show anything for me using assisted communication.
Re Jeff Dunham- mentioned him awhile back. Don’t know if he’s the most popular comedian in the US, but people probably have an easier time remembering who he is simply because of the ventriloquism. There are things with the puppets he gets away with that I don’t think he would be able to if it were just him up there doing stand up, though his stand up opening to one of his Comedy Central specials I think is just as good as the rest of the act. Here’s that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw2BwCn_6x4
re 17 girls in a row- doesn’t count unless both parties reach completion, and don’t believe a guy could even get up 17 times in a night, let alone finish.
Re bullies- would like the link to the story. Not the first time heard that some coddled kids turn into bullies. Usually the parents are then claiming that their child is a little darling and couldn’t possibly be doing what accused of.
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re Google drive...my previous post had a quote and link to a story which mentioned the issue...i.e. the stuff you store with Google is theirs, not yours. So, if you come up with a programme to search the web better...don't use Google drive!
Some other issues:
From http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3442865.htm
MARGOT O'NEILL: Google's new policy will allow it to cross-reference personal data across more than 60 Google products, including web searchers, YouTube, Gmail, mobile phones, tablets and location finders. It will record what you're doing as well as what you wish you were doing, when you're doing it, where you are, who you're talking to and what you're talking about. It may end up knowing more about you than you realise.
Alastair MacGibbon is a former head of the Federal Police High Tech Crime
Centre.
ALASTAIR MACGIBBON: Governments all around the world would be envious of the
amount of information that Google has. And do you know what? We've spent
generations trying to limit what governments know about us. But what we aren't
doing is expecting the same level of privacy and use of data from these private
companies.
After issues with our service provider and a pain in the @$$ vacation, I finally have internet access again. Reply should be up later today.
shareI posted this on July 25th originally, and imdb said it had gone through. Checked back today and it was no where in sight. Luckily it was still on the clipboard in Word. Hopefully it will go through this time.
Re internet spying- the article you mentioned here about google admitting to spying refuses to come up.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/google-admits-to-wi-fi-spying-339303194.htm
The site keeps redirecting me back to the American version of their site, and a search of the Aussie site using the article title revealed nothing. Did read some of the others regarding the privacy issue, though. Would not surprise me in the least if articles criticizing search engines got lost in with all the trash a typical online search gives out. Just can’t believe anyone at the companies think they fool anyone saying that they compile all this data, target certain ads or whatnot at certain users because of this data collected, but the data info supposedly isn’t sold to anyone and is used just for research purposes. Companies don’t do that; it isn’t cost effective most of the time. The data is being stored somewhere, and someone is using it to make money. Period.
Re privately run schools- the problem with private schools is they need to be looked at from a business perspective more so than the public schools. With public schools the government can run up debts that the private sector can’t get away with and stay afloat. If the public school needs more money they can shift some tax dollars around or put some payment off, but the private one has a much more limited well to draw funds from, and when that dries up there really isn’t much they can do about it.
Re Australian juries- it is disturbing that the US system is known more that their own. Haven’t the jurist ever heard you can’t fully trust what you see on tv? Especially fictional tv? Everything in those shows is so shortened and dramatized for entertainment proposes you can’t take much of it as fact. There are some shows over here where they follow real detectives on cases or discuss cases and use footage from real police stations and interrogations, and you come to realize how much red tape there is for cops and other people involved in law enforcement you wonder how any crook gets put away. As for the Miranda rights, it is a joke that people think they know them by heart just from watching tv. You always hear the first couple, but I can’t think of a single time I heard the whole spiel on tv.
Re Jim Crow laws- laws made by states and local governments in the Southern part of the US starting in circa 1870s thru mid 1960s that relegated blacks to second class citizens. “Separate but equal” usually is used to sum up the supposed idea behind them. They tended to mandate that blacks and whites had separate everything in public, i.e. water fountains, schools, seating areas, etc. Also remember some that were designed to prevent blacks from voting or restricting movements, etc. Were thrown out by a series of Supreme Court cases that made integration law of the land and that “separate by equal” was unconstitutional.
Re 51st state- the picture with the guns probably wouldn’t stir much up normally. We just had a guy shoot up a packed midnight showing at a movie theater on Friday, so right now it would probably stir some people up. With the title “Dumb & Dumber” you’d be more likely to get the gun rights people stirred up. After reading the duchess diplomacy article the 51st state comment makes a lot more sense.
Re syphilis experiment/comment- here is the link to the story again if you need it.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtuskegee1.html
Under the third or fourth heading down, it talks about the university that sponsored the experiment being the one Booker T. Washington (a prominent black scientist – also the inventor of peanut butter) founded, that the main nurse of the study was a black woman who saw no problems with the study, and that local black doctors helped with the study in denying the infected men treatment. I’m sorry, but if you’re a doctor and are actively finding ways to stop a sick person from getting any kind of treatment, then you’re not seeing them as people anymore.
Re Satan in Twin Towers smoke- it wasn’t that they didn’t realize or were unsure, it was just something extra that they could bring out when they started the fire and brimstone speeches about the evil Americans were doing being the true underlying spiritual cause as to why 9/11 happened in the first place. Their argument is that if Americans were living by what the crazy Christians call a good Christian life, then 9/11 would not have happened.
Re Jesus- the “hidden story of Jesus” video is working for me. Have it on in the background as typing. There was more exchange of ideas going on in ancient worlds that most people realize, and when you start looking at religions, you can see the same stories appear. Most people just don’t want to hear it because it doesn’t fit into the world view they’ve been taught through their religion. Like the guy in the docu is saying- stray from the view and beliefs taught by your religious institution, and you’re evil and going to whatever bad place.
Re crowded trams- I can’t imagine living in an area that is so crowded like you describe in Japan. Have seen a pic or two of people being shoved in. Don’t remember any sticks. Don’t think there are officially any difference here between street car and trams here, was just something personal.
Re books- reading a book right now that was excited to start, but quickly found out I wrote something similar for a class at uni, was just a short paper, though instead of book. Supposed to look at popular tv shows and movies starting in 1950s and how they make up the mythology of American culture. Pretty crappy. Most of the book is spent explaining plots or certain points of eps that the author wants to highlight. Not a single citation in the whole book and seem to be mostly opinions. Not what expecting and very disappointed.
Never been much of a classics person, though I’ve got some on my shelf that I feel like I should read for a few reasons. Feel bad sometimes when read one though because generally only find abridged editions, and if I’m going to read it just to read it should read the full version.
Re music book- called Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks. Finished it a couple weeks ago, and glad to see it end. Basically it is a bunch of essays put together in a book format. Synaesthesia was dealt with in a section of the book. The main reason I could only take it in short bursts (except was able to do the last 100 pages or so within a day or so) was because I was so out of my depth with it. It is listed as a psychology book, but it was definitely a biological psych book, and that is not what most of my experience has been in and when the anatomy and more technical terms kept getting put in, it became very easy to get overwhelmed with the info. The different essays looked at everything from the different forms of synaesthesia to people that constantly hear music to people that can no longer enjoy any form of music due to certain brain injuries to how music is helping some people with mind degenerating illnesses remember certain things to how music is all some people can remember after an injury that has wiped out the rest of their memories. Book itself wasn’t really long, just a lot of new info delivered at a higher level in a subject that haven’t dealt with much.
Re aboutness book- for the IB program there is a mandatory class called theory of knowledge, and the best description I’ve ever heard for it is “trying to figure out how you know what you know,” and the Proust book you talk about sounds like it would fit right in with the “aboutness.”
Re Lincoln vampire slayer- From some of the things I’ve seen associated with it, I’ve wondered if it originated in a comic book or graphic novel, or if it was changed up some for mainstream, or just hoping that the genre is strong right now. Have also seen the trailers for Lollipop Chainsaw and thought it looked absurd. Was thinking the main character was more playing up the typical skimpy outfit that most video game heroines wind up in.
Re racists shows- during the 1970s, political correctness was not really around too much and could get away with a lot. With the invention of political correctness, people tend to get horrified by anything that someone somewhere may deem offensive because it puts someone else down. Does it make sense? No, but since when does anything when the word political is involved?
Re HHIS- the random puppet does seem a bit weird, but whatever works for ya! Think that puppets can get away with saying a lot on tv that a person can’t, and so sometimes it might just be that the guest may want to respond, but knows they can’t reply in kind due to the strange rules of tv. It is like the ventriloquist comedian I’ve mentioned before, Jeff Dunham. If he just sat up there and said some of the stuff without the puppets, no one would think he was funny, and he would probably be hard pressed to find a job, but because there is a puppet, and not a person saying it, it is okay. And international guests probably have even less of an idea where the appropriate line is. Did find it funny that many of them wound up beating the puppet.
Re 17 girls in a row- redeem themselves at the end of the vid. Part of me finds it entertaining, but the other part just thinks its dumb.
Re bullies have high self-esteem- and in x number of years the parenting trend of the day will say something else. Do agree that there is too much of a push for everyone to think they are special. There is a saying that I’ve picked up from Zen Sarcasm: Always remember that you’re unique. Just like everyone else. Whenever people start going on about telling kids they’re all special this saying never fails to come to mind.
Re Australia looking towards Finland- makes sense. Now what they learned on their visit just needs to be implemented into the schools. Wish you all luck.
Re math and science teachers- any idea what they are talking about when they mention “maths methods” and “specialist maths”? Agree that better teachers are needed in math (can name more than a few I had that were plain awful), but I don’t know if that would really boost the number of kids interested in math. Always seem like there is a certain type of person interested in the higher level maths that just tend to be kind of rare among people.
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That's strange! I think sometimes I try and reply to stuff here and I get a message letting me know that something's gone wrong...never had a post seem to get through but turn out not to. It's weird...I thought you were waiting for me to reply to your last post! What was I going to say to that? "OK"? Lucky that your post was 'remembered' by your computer anyway...I know how much I get annoyed losing text on the computer...I've taken to copying my post here as I go and saving it...just in case!
What went wrong with your vacation? It sucks that it sucked! They're meant to be a time of R&R.
re Google wi-fi spying...yeah, that link no longer works for me either...you could try typing some of the terms in the URL into Google...not exactly sure which story I had in mind, but here are some related links (from memory, I think politicians have said that the spying was deliberate, whilst some of these articles may say that Google accidentally collected data...and in one case 'accidentally' 'forgot' to delete the data once it was awared that it had it!:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-05-25/conroy-slams-creepy-google/84011 6?section=justin
http://www.pcworld.com/article/196397/googles_wifi_spying_what_were_th ey_thinking.html
http://news.yahoo.com/regulators-voice-anger-google-admits-didnt-delet e-street-192017563.html
re private v public schools...there was a certain hot head left wing politician running for Prime Minister here who promised to tackle government funding of private schools...the Murdoch press portrayed him as a class warrior. If he had gotten elected it might have been interesting and we could have seen some good attacks on middle class welfare...I keep reading how this middle class welfare is making property unaffordable and whatnot...e.g. property speculators get tax concessions whilst first time home buyers can't really afford houses...we might have a housing bubble...the REI begs to differ, predictably so.
That left wing politician is often said to have lost the election with this handshake of the incumbent conservative Prime Minister:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hReBMauqhrY
It was a hand crushing handshake. I did read somewhere later, perhaps by the hand crusher that the Prime Minister had done something similar to his wife (i.e. the hand crusher's wife)...dunno what the truth is, but it wasn't a good look for him, especially with the comparatively rabid Murdoch press here, which is anti-Labor Party.
re Miranda rights...I haven't watched a US cop/law show for years. So, the American cliches aren't burned into my brain. Do remember catching the 2nd part of a mini-series here called "Joh's jury" which was an incredible true story...a conservative politician 'up north' (a premier...like your governors) was on trial...he was found not guilty or something. One of the jurors was a supporter or something, which seems like a miscarriage of justice. That premier had a wonderful yet baffling turn of phrase...comedians used to parody him...although that is hard to do, seeing he did it so well himself...don't think that there are good You Tubes of his phrases or parodies...let's see:
This is a parody piece (I like the parody of the presenter too)...no real turns of phrases here, but sort of gives you the flavour of his manner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l2doxjnn3Y
Gosh...not that I expect you to watch this (stuff like this is just for my own reference really...in case I do want to go back to stuff like this), but I see that You Tube has all of Joh's Jury up online!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeR0REXzzrk
re Separate But Equal...around the same time I think Aboriginals here weren't counted in the census...they were treated like fauna or something, from what I've read. Was amused by an interview, I think, concerning The White Australia Policy...might have been with an immigrant Australian journalist or something...would be citizens had to pass a written test to qualify to become an Australian. The funny thing is they sometimes wouldn't be tested in English...this person was fluent in many languages so he kept being given tests in other languages until he failed one! That amused me. Presumably only the English test was given to people who would be thought to be weak in English!
re Satan in twin towers...have heard of some sort of crazy Christian cult in the US who go to military funerals and say that the deceased deserved to die...it was God's punishment...I'm not exactly sure what for. Baptists perhaps. Think Louis Theroux has done episodes in his docus on this mob...but I don't watch a whole lot of Theroux...English guy who looks into wacky American people or whatnot.
re book on American tv...interesting subject...you had those cinema laws at the time which gave a very odd view of Americans...married couples...sharing a room...twin beds! Romantic scenes could not have a person with both foot off the ground...both needed at least one foot on the ground! My pick as the best show of the last decade, the UK's Shameless has been made into an American series now...haven't seen it, but the UK version is such a world away from the image American projected in the 1950s and early 1960s! Saw an old English movie a little while back, Things To Come, I think it was. Funny how there was silly class consciousness...the subject was the upper classes...I wonder how long it took the British to have the working class as their subject matter? Shameless is decidedly working class...and extremely vulgar!
Back to books...I remember reading Aussie reviewer/humourist Clive James novel Brilliant Creatures, I think it was called. I think it petered out towards the end, but the start had me cacking myself! E.g. his description of a family's pet dog dragging its arse on the carpet had me in tears! He could be a very funny guy...I loved his description of Arnold Schwarzenegger: "Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a condom full of walnuts"! Used to enjoy his UK variety show. I remember him talking about "hostages" when asked about his family...implying that openly discussing family matters could hurt them...probably phrased that badly, but recently he was revealed to have been having an affair with a woman...she was covered on Media Watch...she seems really gormless...there's video and transcript here, if it interests you...Media Watch ripped his former lover a new one, thankfully:
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3492282.htm
re Proust and aboutness...the thing which I do hear about it when discussed is his anecdote about how the taste (smell?) of a sweet transported him back in time. Might have been smell...and apparently there is a scientific basis to this...certain smells apparently do trigger memories. I'd jocularly think to myself that Proust was in bed, with his blanket over his head...and he'd fart...and the smell would remind him of something he ate decades ago! Sorry!
re Lincoln Vampire Slayer...based on a book, I've read in reviews. re Lollipop Chainsaw...a game review show I watch was sometimes harsh on it for its sexism...probably by the female co-host. Won't get the game in any case. Think I had or hired a Buffy game, but it didn't grab me...maybe I just played it in store. A good game based on that might be cool. That game show...found a transcript of the review...if you see the broadcast date, you might prefer to watch the video of that segment instead, via the links on the left hand side (the female reviewer, Hex, probably has the comments regarding sexism in the game):
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/stories/s3533386.htm
re Jeff Dunham...I'm corresponding with another American and they sent me a link to a You Tube of an American ventriloquist doing a show...without his dummy. Not sure how funny I found it...did find You Tube funny, but it was a regular stand up comedian...in Canada or something...seemed self-effacing from memory...not the shctick you associate with Americans in any case!
re 17 girls in a row...yeah, I suppose I find their humour funny, but I can't be arsed buying their music...I suppose they're like American style wrestlers...you would just expect American heavy metal fans NOT to ask if they are for real!
I liked your comment that:
Zen Sarcasm: Always remember that you’re unique. Just like everyone else.
That's ambiguous though...taken one way, it doesn't work as sarcasm, because it's true...like saying that each ordinal number is unique...like all the other ones...but they are! Have heard that snow flakes may not in fact all be unique. Won't Google that though...unless you want me to! But re Zen sarcasm...an equivalent (sort of) phrase which comes to mind is this: Opinions are like *beep* has one.
re Maths Methods and Specialist Maths...just subject titles in this state. I think the left wing government brought those terms in...or maybe they replaced them? They're both tertiary orientated subjects...can't say I would remember what the ye olde terms for these subjects would be...Maths A and Maths B? Vaguely remember maths subjects called things like "Space and reasoning"...maybe those left wing government introduced subjects were renamed or given the boot? The non-academic orientated subjects would be called General Maths, I think, maybe Business Maths.
Remember that Australian sketch show with Shaun Micallef? He did those 'drunk' sketches I think that you liked...anyway, he's got a new show...finished recently...new network...not as good as the old shows, but some of the ads etc have amused me...remember those Work Safe ads I linked to before? He's been doing his own versions!
The first one made me laugh because of the woman's final line...I frquently take her advice!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9Ux9d0U9mM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocQlon_OqdE
I got a kick out of this one too...an interview with a union boss...classic! Does it translate well to the US?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPK-pAq0W60
Another Work Safe ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bwvXJJtOWI
I did notice that when you search for this series, the second page, I think, starts having full episodes uploaded...won't link to that...would have liked to have linked to a 'vox pop' concerning hackers or something...oh, noticed his bit which relates to America...it might interest you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoz6kZsjc3s
Remember that former PM who got his hand crushed? He wrote an intersting article the other day re gun control laws here and in the US:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/brothers-in-arms-yes-but-the-us -needs-to-get-rid-of-its-guns-20120731-23ct7.html
By the by...really enjoyed Ricky Gervais' new show Life's Too Short. Derivative but probably his best in that oevre.
Into a UK sitcom called Fresh Meat about a share house for uni students. Enjoying it in a low key way. Beautiful blonde in that...practically banged every week in that show...guessing it's some wish fulfillment fantasy by the producer or something!
Also started watching Episodes with Matt Le Blank (as he was called here after a dull appearance on our version on the Emmys...the Logies). He plays himself. Not convincingly, I don't think! Might stick with it...it's short series...6 episodes in first one, I think. About how US shows destroy UK shows they remake for the US. Fawlty Towers was a classic UK sit come with Monty Python's John Cleese in the lead. He was a hilariously abrasive hotel manager in that show. The US remade the show...without that character in it!
I've mentioned The Gruen Transfer here in the past, that Australian show about advertising (I've heard that the US will be doing its own version of that). They're doing a short series concerning the Olympics now (Gruen Sweat). Liked the second episode. Not sure if it's viewable from where you are, but I might give some links plus post a couple of images I saw on that episode:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruensweat/
They covered "The brand police" for that...they found people circumventing that, like this:
http://bit.ly/McfAUz
This is a two parter...the official logo of the Olympics for London (just think if the image looks like anything before you look at the next image...my question for that is moot as the text gives the game away in the image):
http://www.themetonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2012_logo_whi te_385x450.jpeg
What do you think this looks like?
http://imgace.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/cant-be-unseen-in-london- simpsons-2012-logo.jpg
You may not be able to view the episode online...it's the full episode and official...I remember you mentioning liking "The pitch" segments of Gruen Transfer...they did one this week too...I liked the 2nd one...it's introduced at around 26:00 minutes in...you can jump to that if you like:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruensweat/episodes/ep02.htm
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Re disappearing post- what irks me the most is I always go back and check the day after to make sure the post is there, just in case, and the first time I didn’t double check because I figured it would be fine – after all how many posts are on here we’ve sent back and forth? – it doesn’t work.
Re vacation- I spent roughly two weeks driving around in the backseat of a truck with a dog. That was the entire vacation. I still vacation with my parents, and they like to go to the middle of nowhere, but they don’t like to do things that people can do in the middle of nowhere, i.e. hike, camp, fish, etc. My dad wanted to drive around one of the great lakes, and on the Canada side there is a whole lot of nothing but trees, and there is a certain point where they all look the same, so the view was either the back of the passenger headrest or trees, and the roads we were on were too winding for me to be able to read without getting car sick. Then the hotels we stopped at, we got suite rooms, which means instead of two beds, there was one bed and a pullout couch. I have only ever come across decent pullout couch to sleep on. On this vacation I didn’t even bother pulling the bed out, just took the sheet and pillow and slept on it as a couch.
Re Google- did Google really think that anyone would believe a computer software company would have code in a program that the company didn’t know what it was doing? If their code writers were that dense, illiterate, or whatever, they wouldn’t be working for one of the biggest internet companies in the world. I think I’m more shocked that Google actually admitted to still having info they said they were going delete than the fact that they still have the info.
Re political handshake- surprised they showed that much hostile body language toward each other with all the cameras around. It is one thing to know that politicians on opposite sides hate each other, it is another issue when it goes physical like that.
Re Sir Joh parodies- God I hate people that talk like that, but it seems every politician in the world takes special classes and has special coaching to carry on conversations like that. We have some ultra conservative Republicans running for various offices right now and they keep giving a lot of interviews that are similar to the parody, or they completely contradict something they said on film 6 months ago and claim they never said it when the interviewer calls them on it. Right now they’ve incorporated the tactic of refusing to answer questions on certain topics hoping that people will forget about it.
Re US Christians wackos- you mentioned the ones going to military funerals and harassing the mourners, saying the soldier deserved to die. That is the Westboro Baptist Church. They think that because America is tolerant of homosexuals, that God hates America. Because God hates America, that is why He allowed 9/11 to happen, why so many US soldiers have been killed in the Middle East, why the US national debt is so high, and basically everything that is wrong in America is because America is tolerant of homosexuals. The Westboro website url is godhatesfags.com. From what I saw on their site, it is a church that is based solely on hating pretty much everyone that does not fall inline with their beliefs.
Re Lollipop Chainsaw- thought it looked ridiculous when saw the previews for it over here. From the transcript Bajo seemed more against the revealing outfits than Hex. Think with videogames anymore the sexism is just expected to be there. Last year there was a video that came out of Comi-Con in San Diego where there were people discussing how women in video games are always dressed scantily while the guys usually get some kind of cool armor. The main focus was a new game that had a large cutout model setup at the con that showed the male hero in full on body armor where you couldn’t even see his face and the female hero had on combat boots, skin tight pants, and what was essentially a sports bra and the game concept was some kind of war or apocalypse.
Re Work Safe ad- my problem with the first one is I can’t figure out how it went from button to losing most of the arm. The second one I find more entertaining, but the first one just has me going huh?
Re Union Bully- with the US, you wouldn’t expect to see a Union leader to act like that – they tend to play up the ‘poor us’ angle more, and can’t remember an election where they ever threatened to back a republican (conservative party) because they didn’t like the democrat (liberal party) but it might be an issue of only having two main parties here. The people you’d expect to see making the veiled threats like that are lower level mob flunkies that influence/control certain blue collar industries.
Re US gun laws- The former PM was probably in the worst state possible to suggest tighter gun controls. Texas is one of those states where kids are learning to shoot pretty much before they can crawl. And, despite the evidence showing tighter control leads to lower homicide rates, people are hard pressed to follow through on it. The first and second amendments (free speech, religion, assembly and right to bear arms respectively) are probably the two most harped on in the country and the ones people get riled up about the easiest. The article claimed that the former PM thought that Romney and Obama would have responded the same way after the election regarding gun rights as to how they responded before, and I disagree. Romney most likely would have responded the same way because it would have been his first term as President and being a Republican he has to play to his base to get re-elected. Obama, however, would be in his second and last term, and don’t think it is possible for him to be hated anymore strongly by Republicans than he is not, so he could have responded however he felt necessary. In reality it probably doesn’t matter how either feels about gun control because trying to over turn anything in the Constitution takes such a tremendous political effort that it is hardly ever done, and with as split at the politicians are right now, it won’t be happening anytime soon. Hell, they can’t even get beneficial bills passed right now because no one wants to cooperate with each other. Side A will put one out, Side B shoots it down, and then Side B puts out a pretty much identical bill that is then shot down by Side A.
Matt la Blanc show- is it called Episodes? (think that is the title) On over here on one of the premium cable channels. Remember seeing previews for it, but haven’t heard anything. New Matthew Perry show starting, think next month, where he is some sarcastic sports guy who has to go to group therapy for some reason. Think I’m going to pass on it.
Re Gruen Sweat- watched part of the beginning of ep 2 where they talk about Bolt and watched the ads at the 26 min mark. As for Bolt being a big money maker worldwide, I don’t get it. Personally I don’t like all his crap, especially after he wins a race. Saw one of the ones he ran this year, and he was too busy doing all the poses and whatnot to shake hands with the other runners, even his own countrymen! So he’s a fast runner, but he just seems like an ass.
Re Olympics logo- guess if you’re a big Simpsons fan it is easier to see. I can see Lisa mostly in the 02, but even with it coloured for the characters I don’t really see Bart. Sad thing was how long it took me to realize that block said 2012. Saw a whole bunch without really looking at it and then about half way through the games it finally clicked.
Word Count: 1397
re disappearing posts...you wait the next day? On another site there is sometimes a delay for my post to go up, so I wait a few minutes. If it's still not up I go back and copy the message then email it to myself or something...and if the post still isn't up the next day or so, I'll try again...sometimes the site is just playing silly buggers...one day your message is up right away, some days it has to 'think' about it!
re your vactation...do dogs suppress their farts? Just by the by, I did hear that a lot of dogs get hurt here in cars...or on the trays of utes to be more precise (i.e. what we call 'pick up trucks'...although by American standards, are utes are light on the 'truck' side...more like sedans with the back hacked off. Hmm...I was under the impression that utes were an Australian invention...anyhoo...).
Can you just drive into Canada like that? Or are the Canadians harsh on 'Mexicans'? Just kidding...do they call American's that? The Australian cognate of the 'deep south' is the deep North...I think they, or even people from Sydney, call people in states below them "Mexicans". Hmm.
How did the winding roads make you unable to read? I know that sometimes when I try and read on a bus it's really hard, because the sun is casting shadows from the trees onto my paper...it's a bit headache inducing.
re "I have only ever come across decent pullout couch to sleep on.". Should that sentence have a "one" in it? After "across"? Not sure what you're saying there in other words.
Did you try and indulge in 'Canadian' type culture? American culture being so dominant worldwide, I suppose you could be inclined to dine at McDonald's and stay at Flag Inns (I forget if that is the US hotel/motel chain I'm trying to recall). You can go to loads of places around the world...without feeling that you've actually left America!
re Google...yeah, it sounds like they're trying PR spin on what they did, and fortunately the governments don't believe them...but I did read the other day about how Governments are themselves wanting to make it easier for them (i.e. government) to check up on their citizens.
re political handshake...like I said, the pundits seem to think that that's the moment where the opposition leader lost the election. Be interested to know if it's true if the Prime Minister on the receiving end of that handshake actually did that to the opposition leader's wife...that would kind of surprise me...I could believe him misjudging a firm handshake with her though.
That PM has been the subject of parody/satire too. He used to have wild eyebrows...apparently modelled on his political hero, Sir Robert Menzies, former PM. He had that clipped later. His voice was parodied too. Interestingly, he was ironically dubbed "honest John" over some sort of political deceit...but, the electorate having a short memory, he came to embrace that ironic title, but literally...the man you could trust. He also introduced the Orwellian concept of "core promises"...i.e. he could promise something at the election...but afterwards he could choose not to implement it...because it wasn't a 'core' promise. Hmm.
re Sir Joh parody...that clip didn't capture his mangling of figures of speech...maybe Reagan did stuff like that too? But with Sir Joh, it would be stuff like this...not sure if he actually said this, but it was this kind of stuff: "Don't count your chickens before you cross the bridge". He had all these kind of jumbled up phrases which he'd use.
re politicians being coached for interviews...something similar I've noticed, but state politicians over here tend to sound the same...I mean on the Labor side...they all speak in a clipped, measured way for some reason. It's like they all went to the same elocution school or something...don't know what that is all about...perhaps they're just copying other Labor leaders who had 'gravitas' or something.
I do remember seeing on some show Reagan's tactic of avoiding answering questions from the media...always have a helicopter running nearby...then you place your hands near your ear and signal that you can't hear the question! Might be hard fitting a helicopter in a press conference though!
re Westboro church...wasn't there some sort of law case on their 'right' to disrupt funerals? A 'free speech' issue wasn't it? They were allowed to continue being berks at funerals weren't they? Troubling issue that though...upsetting grieveng relatives vs the 'right' to free speech...their right to say that God is punishing their loved one. The natural come back would be to keep tabs on every horrible thing that happens to members of that church and state that God is punishing them...problem is that they might actually agree and miss the point!
re Lollipop Chainsaw...what I remember most from the tv show review was Hex saying that she didn't like being rewarded for saving a guy in the game with him saying how great her boobs looked. And she has mentioned the lack of armour worn by female warriors. Think she was harsh on some Japanese game too which had young girls looking sexy and perhaps lots of views of their knickers...the guy reviewer probably also agreed with Hex on that though.
re Work Safe ad...it was from the new satirical Micallef programme...so, that's the joke...you assume the guy lost his arm just unbuttoning his shirt or something! It's just ridiculous. But I like it. You found the concept of the guy using the clapper board on a tv set and losing his arm to that more plausible?
re Texas gun laws...I saw a recorded ep of Family Guy yesterday...pro gun ad and the very end of the ad in tiny writing and very fast speech saying that guns are bad...contradicting the NRA's message in the ad.
re Howard's comment on Obama re gun control...I think I'd have to disagree with you and say that Howard is probably right...I just can't imagaine Obama taking on the gun lobby any time in his term...even if he got re-elected. In other words, even in that situation - of being re-elected - he'd still leave the status quo on guns.
Was an "odd spot" story, I think, on how an American accidentally shot himself in a cinema and then apologised to the audience as he took himself to the hospital. That's just totally bizarre to me...Americans don't think it odd to carry guns on them...and take them into a cinema? Really strange.
re your comments on Obama and Romney...have been reading/hearing interesting stuff about Romney...how he's captive to the lunar right of the party and 'forced' to adopt their policies, which he doesn't believe in. Did hear an interview on NewsRadio over here with a new fiction writer on his book "Patriots". He wrote non-fiction best sellers in the past...I think he's the guy who coined the phrase "the axis of evil" for W. His book his how the lunar right manages to control the Republican Party. One article I read here, perhaps by an Australian, is saying that Romney chose his running mate on the assumption that he would lose...it's his "I told you so" fall back position...i.e. implying that he could have won if he had chose a moderate running mate for vice president. If he chose a moderate running mate and he lost, I think the argument would be that would just highlight how much further to the right the party needs to be. The Patriots author was saying that the lunar right of the party have a solution to all of America's problems...more ideology. They're ideologically driven. He gave a good example...Romney was interviewed by the lunar right press and the 'journo' or whatever said that if cutting government spending over his first term was good, wouldn't cutting the same amount in his first year be better? Romney said that doing that would the US into a recession. That's the real Romney, but he has to allow his campaign to be hijacked by the lunar right in order to get a smooth run to the President, at least from his own side.
There was a recent US comedy movie released here about American campaigning. The star...ah, remembered his name, Will Ferrell, was told by the Australian writer that Australia's Prime Minister is an unmarried, childless atheist living with her boyfriend. Ferrell was stunned by that...as in it would be inconceivable that she could have survived in US politics with that background. She recently held a press conference to take on stories continually published by the Murdoch press here questioning her ethics. She called the bloggers pushing this line "misogynist nut jobs". That Murdoch paper, The Australian, as well as his other papers, tabloids, are incredible...really rabid. I wonder if they have equalled the rabidity of Fox News in the US. One of those bloggers I found out recently was a famous cartoonist who is now bankrupt. He used to sell - maybe still does - calenders were funny nude pictures of politicians etc. He's apparently really nasty. Might have to check out his site just to see how bad he is.
re Matt Le Blanc...yeah, show called "Episodes". I think it's written by Americans, but is about how US shows dumb down their versions of the UK shows they are based on. That Matthew Perry show sounds like the kind of show that would be the dumbed down version of any UK show. I'll keep following Episodes. Annoyingly, I found out that the repeats on another digital channel were actually longer than that played on the main channel. I'll have to record the digital channel version from now on, if there's more to come. Did watch some repeats of that and they still made me laugh. There was a really good scene where a woman was very upset with herself and Matt looks like he is going to comfort her...only to reach over her for a fag...smoke. Nice moment there.
re you not liking Bolt...Americans have been doing his kind of schtick forever, haven't they? Preening and posing, I mean. Seem to remember US male track athletes in previous Olympics really piling it on, posing wise...probably after winning gold. Looked for photos but not using good search terms or something. There was an American swimmer who was part of the US' gold medal fancy relay team a while back...he said that the US would smash the Australian team like guitars. Australia won the gold. They (the Australian swimmers) then mimed smashing guitars! There was an Australian swimmer this Olympics who was pretty full of himself...and he missed getting any gold. He seemed a dick. I did read how during one tournament he said to his other team mates that the team mate swimming the leg at the time would cost him 'his' gold medal. Turns out it was the one being snarky who had a bad leg in the relay and not getting the gold he thought was his due.
The only thing that bugged me about Bolt was how last Olympics he coasted to the line in the 100m final, I think. I was just wondering if he could have gone below 9.5 seconds if he ran right through. He and a team mate have seemed to want to play cricket in Australia...not sure how serious they are...be a pity to lose them to running...I'd like to see how fast he could run. Interestingly, I was reminded that the US athlete Carl Lewis, who has questioned whether Bolt is on drugs, was himself a three time drug cheat who was unpunished by the US selectors and still retains his Olympic gold medals. Bizarre. As for Bolt not shaking hands with other competitors after races or whatnot, come to think of it, I don't think handshakes are the norm in such individual sports...as in I can't remember any winner of a track race acknowledging the existence of their competitors afterwards!
re Olympic logo...the left hand column figures is Bart, and the right hand column figures is Lisa. Now that the imagined picture has been pointed out to me, I can't help but see it!
I seem to remember you saying that you liked guitar music...I was recently checking out apparently influential English metal band Venom (they're openly black metal) and I liked this nice little instrumental:
Venom - Mayhem with mercy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvTBh5K1v3w
Another surprising band to make that kind of music is Black Sabbath...liked these pieces:
Black Sabbath - Orchid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hv0Ldkh_0s
Black Sabbath - Fluff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjbj-xpkkDo
Ah, remembered you liking Apocalyptica's cello work and that you played cello...
Black Sabbath - FX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nhupbAQMX4
You might find this track interesting too:
Black Sabbath - FX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cJjKAnfhLA
Forgot to mention last time, that show Media Watch covered a story which was interesting...how newspapers should be aware that pixellating faces anymore won't work...you just Google their image and Google will find unmasked photos of that person, if they exist.
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3542172.htm
Edit in...I remember you saying you were singing the lyrics to that Tornado song called "Hate worldwide" which I linked to a while back...and I commented that I'm surprised you'd do that, given the lyrics. In the same spirit, I found the following Venom song quite catchy...it's black metal...just offering this up as an example of a catchy song...not sure if you are religious and would find it horrifying...I'm agnostic on a good day and atheist on a bad day...so I don't read too much into songs like this:
Venom - In league with Satan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5wUr4Lut4A
I'm curious what the backmasked lyrics are. Did read that, as a joke, Iron Maiden, I think, backmasked some lyrics but they were quoting from a comedian, not saying anything blasphemous or whathaveyou. Have heard that Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" has backmasking...something about Satan being lord or...whatevah!.
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You can't create a post without a body
Re do dog suppress their farts- I wish. Our former dog was not very gassy. This one is, and they are always the silent, deadly kind that one second the air is breathable and the next you are in desperate need of a gas mask.
Re dog injuries in trucks- There are a lot of people who just put their dogs in the back of their trucks, not in crates or tied to one of the metal loops on the side. Have seen people driving down the highways like that and it always makes me worried for the dog. With small dogs, mostly the toy breeds, you see a lot of people in cars driving with them in their laps or letting the dog run around the whole car, jumping from the back seat to the front, etc.
Re Canada- Have heard Canadians call Americans Yankees, but never Mexicans. And in some conversations you can say something that Americans do or say and the candian will just kind of shake their head, but in the way they think you’re nuts, not disgusted.
Re unable to read in car- motion sickness. Used to get it worse when I was younger, and have grown out of it some, and on relatively straight roads I’ve gotten to the point that I can read in back as long as I can angle myself to not see out the windows, but on a winding road the motion from vehicle alone is enough to get me sick if I’m trying to read. Sometimes even if I’m not sitting in the back it can and we’re on a winding road it is enough for me to start feeling queasy.
Re pullout couch- I have only ever come across ONE decent pullout couch to sleep on. Yes, the one was supposed to be there. Brain tends to get ahead of my fingers at times.
Re Canadian culture indulgence- been to Canada twice now and have never come across anything drastically different from the US yet. There are two food chains up there that I wish would come down to the States: Tim Horton’s and Harvey’s/Swiss Chalet. Harvey’s and Swiss Chalet are owned by the same company and are basically burger joints, but Harvey’s is more fast food and S.C. is sit down. Decent prices, pretty good food for what they are. The closest thing I can think of to compare T. H. to is Starbucks, but Timmy’s has a small selection or real food – couple sandwiches and soups, and then some pastries.
Canada has the best French fries I’ve ever tasted, I love that you can find 7Up in any restaurant you go into, in the more remote areas ice is something you have to ask for in a drink instead of it being assumed, and good fish is only about a block away. As for hotels, didn’t stay at any American chains in Canada, but the ones we did stay at weren’t any different than ones in the States. Only province I’ve been to is Ontario, so maybe that explains some of it; I would expect Quebec to be more of a culture shock.
Re Flag Inns- have never heard of the chain. If they are over here, it must be a regional thing.
Re governments checking up on citizens- aka spying. In USA please see under Patriot Act. I think the biggest thing that bugs me about wide spread government spying is that there just seems like so much other stuff that they could be doing and spending tax money on that would be more beneficial.
Re political promises- I trust no promise made by politicians during election campaigns. Most aren’t in any position to be promising the crap they claim they’ll do in office simply because there are too many other factors. Biggest laugh of the presidential campaign over here I’ve heard so far is Romney say that he would be okay with being a one term (4-year) president as long as he could “get the country back on track.” Anyone that is running for president is not going to be “okay” with one term.
Re Westboro church- yeah, there was a case that went to the Supreme Court (highest you can get) that said that the wackos had the right to protest at the funerals because it was their free speech rights and they weren’t creating scenes or heckling people. Just standing around with their signs. In response to that, there have been groups around the country that have formed to act as barriers between Westboro followers and the funeral attendees. The people will show up at the funeral and create sort of a circle around it holding US flags and saluting the coffin. Also people will line the route from wherever the viewing was held to the cemetery holding flags trying to protect the mourners from having to deal with Westboro followers.
Re keeping tabs on bad things happening to W. church members- they’d probably claim that it was still someone else’s fault or that whoever it happened to wasn’t a “good” a Christian as they said they were. Those people are great at coming up with all sorts of excuses as to why they’re in the right and everyone else is wrong, even when the excuses make absolutely zero sense to anyone not indoctrinated into their way of thinking.
Re Work Safe ad- with the guy with the clapper, I could at least understand where it was coming from with the clapper coming down to losing the arm, but the one with buttoning the shirt going from buttoning a button by the neck to losing most of an arm was just a WTH type thing. For me there is a fine line between funny absurd and too ridiculous absurd. Do you get the show Community over there? Supposedly a group of people at a community college and the craziness that goes on. Has Chevy Chase, Ken Jeong, Joel McHale, and Danny Pudi.
Re Family Guy NRA commercial- It’s Family Guy. That’s all I have to say.
Re Americans carrying guns- we have conceal and carry laws over here. Don’t remember if it is all 50 states or just some of them, but a person can go get a permit to carry a small firearm on their person and it is perfectly legal. There are some places that have stickers on their doors that say weapons are not allowed on premises (which I thought movie theaters were one, but might be dependent on which state), and it might not be legal to have them there, but otherwise it’s legal. The idea is that if someone tries to mug/assault/whatever you can protect yourself.
Re Romney and Republicans- right now it seems the Romney campaign can decide on what they believe. There will be an interview that comes out where he or Ryan (VP candidate) says one thing, and a few hours later a press release comes out online that saying that the campaign didn’t mean what it just said. You are correct that the Republican party has been hijacked by the crazy right-wing. You can’t trust Romney, though, if he has been hijacked because you don’t know what you’ll get in office. Will you get whatever Romeny believes, which is hard enough to pin down as is, or will you get a mouth for the Republican party, whose current economic are the same as they’ve been for gods know how long and their social policies are archaic, at best.
Re “unmarried, childless atheist living with boyfriend” PM- have to agree with Ferrell. I don’t think it is the childless part that would have a huge affect, but the unmarried, living with the boyfriend would hurt with people probably over 25, and atheist would be a death knell. For some reason, maybe Puritan leftovers still, the American majority wants Christians in politics, though Catholics, Mormons, and certain other factions are not always welcome. Depending on how old she is and for what reasons, there would be people that would think it was horrible that she didn’t have children, and if she was medically unable I’m sure they’d be saying she should have adopted some American babies. Unmarried, while I’m sure there are unmarried female politicians, I think they’re more at the local and not national level. By the time they hit national, they are old enough where it is expected they be married, and living with a boyfriend would have an incredible number of people up in arms with reasons ranging from bad role model to sinning. I applaud her “misogynist nut jobs” response to her attackers.
Re Bolt/obnoxious athletes- I don’t have a problem with celebratory gestures if someone did well, but there are limits, and just don’t remember any athlete being as bad as Bolt as far as the post race bull. Maybe there were others in the past that won that were just as bad on posing and what not and they just didn’t get the attention Bolt gets because he is expected to win all his events and has been doing so for a number of years, and he is a money maker. This past Olympics I remember a lot of swimmers giving each other handshakes in congratulations, and didn’t see too many other individual events, so maybe it was just them.
Re Venom-Mayhem with Mercy- sounds like it would be a nice intro for something more, but the piece itself doesn’t go anywhere.
In League With Satan- not as catchy as Hate Worldwide, but not bad. Think Hate Worldwide is a bit easier to hear on the chorus. As for the basckmasked lyrics, you can probably take it into a program like Audacity and might be able to clean it up to hear, if there is really anything much to hear at all. Several years ago I remember this came up as an issue related to some other mainstream song. Something about the band hiding Satan worshipping phrases in the lyrics, which turned out to be nonsense.
Re religion- have agnostic leanings, but on my bad days tend to be anti-organized religion. Tends to piss me off to no end when people use religion as an excuse not to think for themselves or try to use religion as a reason for their hate or dislike.
Re Black Sabbath pieces- like Mayhem with Mercy most sounded like good intro pieces or pieces that the metal bands put on their albums as a sort of breather from the rest of the music on the album. Kind of irritates me sometimes because you’ll get these nice instrumental bits that are super short out of these metal bands, and while I’ve only come across a handful or less of actual metal songs I like, I tend to enjoy these little bits that they come up with.
Re Google- and Big Brother grows more and more by the day. If media is really concerned with keeping someone anonymous they shouldn’t be publishing any pics of the person, pixilated or not. While the software was no where as easy accessible as google, there were still programs the could clean the images up is someone really wanted to. Guess the media will just have to put a generic silhouette in place instead now or nothing at all.
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On the eyebrow topic of dog farts...have you you heard of charcoal pills for them? It's meant to 'absorb' the gas...hmm...is it availabe for humans too?
re "And in some conversations you can say something that Americans do or say and the Canadian will just kind of shake their head, but in the way they think you’re nuts, not disgusted."
Frinstance?
I suppose in Australia we get "Only in America!" news stories. Presumably the polarity is reversed in the U.S.?
Would have thought car motion was so mild that it wouldn't be problematic...but I have heard of 'car sickness'. What are you like on a boat? Roller coaster? There's a fun park over here which is very old. I think I went on a ride which was meant to be a roller coaster...it might even be called a "scenic railway" now...assuming that the ride stopped being 'scary' decades ago! Have heard of a UK law from over a hundred years ago which mandated that cars not drive more than 4 mph or something like that and that a person must walk ahead of the car with a red flag or something...to warn people of the oncoming menace!
re Canadian eateries...sounds local. There's a lot of American coffee places here...they seem ridiculous to me...coffees with a mountain of whipped cream on them, with sprinkles and a parasol! Sheesh! I think the city where I live has a reputation for good coffee...but in comparison to those American joints maybe that's not so hard...I tend to find the coffee from cafes here variable...sometimes it's great, sometimes really mediocre. Hmm...not sure if Gloria Jean's is an American coffee chain. You heard of it? Maybe it's Australian, but still has those crazy kiddie coffees.
I did watch an episode of Roy & H.G. once (I've linked to their You Tubes before, where they give silly commentary to Olympic events) where they interviewed an American sprinter during the Sydney Olympics. He said he was a fan of chocolate Paddlepops. I like those too. Think they're Australian...he'd certainly never heard of them before. Maybe they're British, I dunno. It's good when you find something new. There's just a lot of American chains here or just ubiquitous chains...one place I go to on the weekends has two cafes...different names...but I notice a girl from one working at the other...it's just the same old same old...I suspected that already but beforehand I asked the same girl on this and she made it sound like two different establishments. So, don't like the fact that those shopping centres are just cut and pastes of eachother. I'm not a fan of Tim Tam biscuits over here, but I have heard of an odd eating ritual for it...you bit off the top corner of one end and the opposing corner on the other end and...use it as a straw to sip coffee...maybe give it a burl!
re Ontario...that's the English section, right? No frogs there?
re political promises...did I mention 'Honest' John Howard's notion of 'core promise'? It's a distinction he raised after he decided not to honour it! He's the guy who got his hand crushed by the opposition leader. The current opposition leader and near cert to be our next PM mentioned that people should take the things he puts in writing as binding for him...so he can pretty much say anything he likes...coz, hey, if it ain't in writin'!
From Australian politics - not sure if 'borrowed' this phrase from the U.S. - we get the notion of 'dog whistle politics'. I.e. that's using phrases which seem benign but are full of meaning for certain sections of society...e.g. racists or what not. This might relate to your point about Romney...there's the literal meaning of what he says, perhaps, and the 'dog whistle'...that way he simultaneously appeals to two separate groups but he can't deliver to both of them...'weazel words' might be another form of the same notion.
re bad things happening to Christians...yeah, would have said that myself, i.e. their rationalisations that the person mustn't have 'really' believed or whatnot to explain why something bad happened to them. All they had to do was pray harder! Or something.
re Community...you mention that in relation to absurd humour? It's on digital tv here but I haven't partaken. I've caught up the 2nd series of Episodes and am enjoying that. Wondering if Weeds is returning or is done. Bit of a cliffhanger type ending last series.
You mention Puritan hangover in the US...recently I saw an old episode of QI which debunked the American mythology on them...memory not the best, but to the effect that they wanted to persecute people in the U.S. not escape it in Europe! In any case, you can check it out...found someone's post on this topic as well as a You Tube of that segment of the show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj6t0FwJpWw
http://forums.catholic-convert.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=141264
re our female PM...she deposed the incumbent...palace coup. Unprecendented (in a serving PM being shafted by his own party). Do remember a US president coming here, I think, and commenting on a similar scenario - in the same party. Think I've heard from papers here that it's a disadvantage in the US not having an opposition leader, like we do, who can be a focus for the opposition party. Anyway, I think that our female PM recently celebrated her 50th birthday. So, I think she 'chose' not to have children...as in a 'lifestyle' choice...something the conservative politicians over here have attacked her for.
Have heard in recent days about the topic of the 'real' Mitt Romney being current in the US. This is sooooooooo last year in Australia! As in the conservative press, especially, was harping on the real Julia Gillard (our PM). But that was more like a "gotcha!" from the press...she did raise the phrase herself and the press were looking for the opportunity to throw it back at her.
re Bolt...I don't mind his harp playing schtick. Like I said, from Olympics past I recall the US sprinters being really OTT in their celebrations. As in making Bolt look like a retiring wall flower!
re Venom instrumental going nowhere...I found it pleasant, and that's enough for me...it's not on any list worthy chart of mine though for songs.
re backmasked lyrics...never heard of Audacity. Free? Like I said, Iron Maiden did some backmasking...they were getting Jack of being accused of being devil worshippers in the US so just for a larky they backmasked some comedy catchprhases into a song. Along the lines of "If you're taking the piss, we'll show you how to take the piss!" (to an imagined American audience). Oh, what the Hell...here's the Wikipedia entry for what I'm talking about!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_of_mind#Hidden_message
re religion, currently watching a four part series about the Amish...youn uns on a trip to England. It's clear to me that there's a parade of the classes...first they visit a poor black community, then an upper middle-class family and next is an upper class family. The female Amish are especially harsh on the dress sense of the pretty young things...but I like that they are very politic in dealing with them. Not a bad series so far.
re heavy metal instrumentals...yeah, but again, it's enough for me that those Black Sabbath instrumentals are pleasant. I'm realising that I like 'pleasant' music! Was watching the glam metal ep of Metal: Evolution and a professor at a uni, I think, was saying that women liked these bands because the band shared the same interests as them...hair care etc! And it was the ballads which really made some of them bands.
Hmm...since I've already mentioned "list worthy" songs (and agreed with you that that Venom instrumental and Black Sabbath one didn't qualify), I might as well link to two You Tubes of similar songs which I do find list worthy:
Black Sabbath - Planet caravan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O63COyZlTyU
Metallica - Orion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qYqi-EMErU
re newspaper pics and privacy...I did hear of the trick to make out pixellated faces...squinting! From memory, that worked okay. On some tv shows they seemed pretty slack...backlit interviewee but just a bit too much light so if you knew the person, the technique wouldn't be useful to protect them.
Saw a really interesting ad on Gruen Planet the other day...what do you think of it? Make a point of not overshooting the video, below...start from, say, 25:37...or, if you want to catch a Bolt joke, from 23:55
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruenplanet/pages/s3588440.htm
Since you mentioned Starbucks, this might interest you:
http://au.pfinance.yahoo.com/photos/photo/-/13991277/what-your-faceboo k-likes-tell-advertisers/13991484/
P.S. saw a lovely ad on Gruen Planet the other day...maybe you'll like it too...it starts at around 2:20:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruenplanet/pages/s3593569.htm
P.P.S. just seen the opening ep of the latest Doctor Who series "Asylum of the daleks" and I'd have to call it a classic. You did mention hearing that "Blink" was a classic, which I agree with. The 'angels' from that return for their 3rd appearance in a story...next week or two, my time, since the latest edit here.
P.P.S. since we've mentioned religious nutters, I have to mention liking another "Gotcha!" moment from an Australian satirical show (guys like John Safran are good at this kind of stuff too...think I've linked to him in the past...that trailer of his which pitched to have a Mormon movie made to an actual US studio, I think). Anyway, maybe from around the 5:00 or 5:25 minute mark of the following episode there's some stuff where the satirists bamboozle religious zealots by quoting the bible back to them...and them not having a reply...just loved that politician's reaction, I think, when he queries the satirist's credentials. Priceless!
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/hamsterwheel/pages/s3598167.htm
I enjoyed this week's Gruen Planet too, concerning gays. Episode 6. You may enjoy "The pitch" to get you to drop using e-readers for paperbacks.
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You can't create a post without a body
Re Canadians thinking Americans weird- when we were calling to see what papers our puppy needed, to get back into America we needed proof that the dog was too young to have a rabies shot yet, whereas the Canadians didn’t need the proof. The guy we talked to about it said something along the lines of ‘those strange Yanks.” Remember it happened once or twice in restaurants when we went up there the first time, too, but don’t remember what the conversation was about.
Re Only in America stories- occasionally we get stories from other countries where there is that reaction, not including the almost daily violence reports out of the Middle East, but we also get the Only in America type stories – the kind that you hope other countries never hear about.
Re car sickness- car sickness tends to affect me most when I’m in the backseat with no good view of seeing out the windshield, and occasionally when I’m in the front and the driver is horrible or already feel cruddy. From what I’ve heard most people that get car sick are like that. Have only been on a couple of boats, and one was some kind of rocket boat that the trip only takes a few minutes and the waters were really calm that day so wasn’t a problem. The other one was one of the boats that get you close to the bottom of Niagara Falls, and did fine on that one. Have never been out on a lake/river/sea/ocean so don’t know if for any period of time so don’t know what it would be like. Never been on a real roller coaster either, just kiddie ones. Those I’m guessing I’d have a problem with. Do you know those amusement rides that are usually shaped like cups or bowls that you sit it and while the whole ride is moving in a circle you and the people you’re with are supposed start spinning the cup/bowl you’re sitting in? (Sorry for the horrible description. The only one I can name off the top of my head is the Spinning Teacup Ride at some of the Disney parks, and not sure if you’re familiar with that.) Can also find them on carousals sometimes. Those are the kind of rides where I’m trying not to puke my guts out once it is over. Stomach has toughened a bit as I’ve gotten older, but not much.
Re eateries- have never heard of Gloria Jean’s. We get chains over here, though, that are sometimes restricted to certain areas, i.e. east coast, west coast, south, etc. Anything like that over there?
The thing you describe using the Tim Tam biscuits as straws is something I like to do with licorice and 7up, but only certain types of licorice work for it, usually the cheaper brands. Never been a coffee fan – can’t get past the taste and have never cared enough to play around with all the crap people can put in it to doctor the taste to my liking. Started drinking tea in high school a little bit, and last semester at uni finally realized could use to help keep myself awake in my 8 am class. Was such an aha! moment that felt like an idiot it took so long.
Re Ontario- an English section, borders Quebec (only French section) on its eastern side I think, so might be some Frenchies over on that area.
Re dog whistle- not a term I’ve heard over here. If not Australian, maybe it came from the Brits? Obama has recently termed Romney’s constant changes in policies and saying that was always his stance as ‘Romnesia.’ Found it very appropriate.
Re Community- yeah, but of absurd humour and completely ridiculous. One of those shows that you watch it and wonder what the writers were on when writing the eps.
Re Weeds- have never seen. On premium cable over here, and think one channel had rerun rights for a bit, was the kind of thing that it was cut for time and content to the point of why bother. Do hear about it from time to time always in relation of possible cancelation, but then it’s back for some reason or the other. Just looked it up and found story on TvLine saying that season 8 is the last one.
Re Puritan myth- there was a section of the QI vid where I think it was Stephen Fry said that all countries have their sort of glorified founding myths, and the Pilgrims/Puritans are one of ours. I think in many instances it isn’t what actually happened that is leftover in modern belief, because let’s face it, people love to forget the dirty, gritty, unpleasant bits of history their ancestors were apart of (think we’ve discussed that at least a little bit before), but rather the beliefs from the myth in grain themselves. If that makes any sense whatsoever.
Re Audacity- freeware that is lets you record, edit, mix, etc audio files. Used it for a class a few years back and have kept it around for random use. One of those programs that can do a lot with it and if you don’t need a lot of extras makes a lot more sense that shelling out money for a program you’re going to have to shell out more to update in a couple years.
Re Amish- there is a series that started I think last year called Breaking Amish. There is a tradition with the Amish when a kid turns 16 they go outside of the Amish community into basically regular society for a certain amount of time – think a year is the standard time – and then decide if they want to go back to the Amish community or if they want to live in the modern world. The Breaking Amish follows some of these kids as they go out on this exploration and then I think they have kept following the ones that decided to stay in the modern world, but have gotten out of control, i.e. too much drinking, partying, etc.
The show you mention probably has the kids out on their explore the world trip. Most Amish won’t allow themselves to be filmed and don’t think the religion is okay with the use of airplanes.
Re Starbucks and Facebook Likes- I think this is more telling who is more likely to like things on their facebook pages than who likes Starbucks. Seen plenty of men buying Starbucks products.
Re Gruen Planet- while in the past I have had no problem viewing the Gruen Planet eps on the ABC website, they have suddenly decided that the full eps can only be viewed in Australia. Searching youtube for the full eps you linked to didn’t get me any results either. I can still see The Pitch clips, but nothing else.
As for e-readers vs paper books, I prefer books overall. I like to be able to hold my spot and flip back if I need to, not having to worry about the way the light hits the screen, not having such a limited storage space or having to resort to storing on a cloud drive that I can only access via the internet, only having to pay the price of the book and not the price of the book plus the high cost of the e-reader. I like to be able to go into a bookstore and browse and find a book that I may not have been interested in if I hadn’t been able to flip through it and glance at what I wanted to glance at instead of only what, if any, sample the publisher gives online. I remember how pissed I was the first time one author I read had a book that came out only in e-reader format. Don’t know about Nook, but Kindle now has a set up where you can download their e-books to your computer and just read them there instead of having to buy and maintain the damn device (which is sure to be outdated in a year or two at most – don’t see the paperback going out of date!) I always think about how at uni there would be professors that would post PDFs of some articles we had to read, ones typically too long to print out (and really poor quality scans that printed out even worse) and what a pain it was trying to go back and forth with those. Same thing with the e-readers.
With all that being said, I do like fan fiction, and have no problem reading that online. I see that as a completely different format of writing, however, and don’t find it that much of a hassle. I guess it comes down to if I’m going to pay for something I like to have a hard copy that I know some computer/software problem etc. isn’t going to come around and eat the file, and thus my money. One of the main reasons I always want a cd over just downloading music, even though that isn’t always a possibility. For some people I can understand that the individual music download and the e-books are sort of saving graces for them because it does allow them to be published whereas before the publisher/record label wouldn’t have taken a chance because it didn’t look like there would be enough copies sold to make money, but still like my hard formats.
(Always feel so old when I go off on tangents on music download and e-books. Like one of those people crazy people that go around demanding to know what is so great about these new fancy fangled technology devices that everyone did just fine without when I was growing up. That being said I have long since come to the conclusion that I could not live anymore without my old classic ipod, and I am getting more dependent on having my itouch around me in the house and having internet access without having to get on the computer and am getting to the point where I find it annoying when a location does not have wifi available when I want to look something up.)
Re Hamster Wheel- iView doesn’t work for me, and never has. Country banned again. Thought I had found the right ep on youtube, and watched 10 minutes of it before re-reading your comment and figuring out it was the wrong one.
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Hmm...so you took you dog out of the US into Canada no probs but returning was a problem? Why couldn't you just say to the US border patrol or whatever you call them "This is the same dog that we took into Canada...what's the problem?". Does the US not have a problem with rabies and Canada does? I actually have heard of rabies occurring in the US...I think...or maybe I'm thinking of the Black Death? Definitely that!
re your comment that:
"but we also get the Only in America type stories – the kind that you hope other countries never hear about."
How do you mean? Did hear of some stupid Australians making the news in the US...they robbed a bank in the US...near where they had been staying...they wore balaclavas...but spoke in an Australian accent during the robbery. You'll be surprised to learn that they were quickly arrested!
I've heard of those tea cup amusement rides. They're quite calm! I felt a bit nauseous when I first started playing a Formula 1 racing game on the N64 console...so, realism isn't really a factor there! First Person Shooters have made me feel nauseous too. I just don't like the FP part of those games, usually. Playing the game "Journey" also made me feel a bit nauseous...which is odd...maybe I was just in a funny mood or something...just wasn't in the mood for it. It's an almost cartoony game where you move a robed figure around a desert landscape. Like I said, odd to feel nauseous for that game!
re chains...we probably have them in some regions and not others...but no doubt they are just looking to expand. Maybe this is sort of related, but I think McDonalds over here took out a trademark on "Burger King" so when that US chain wanted to open here, they had to find another name! They're called "Hungry Jacks" here...but years later I did see some specific stores call themselves "Burger King"...so maybe McDonald's shenannigans got overruled by a court here or something. I think that Hungry Jacks initially was just located in the west of Australian but now they're everywhere, no doubt. At the top of my head I can't think of a local chain.
re you liking tea...so, you're a monarchist then? Got the impression that drinking tea was a big statement for Americans. Have seen some US tv or film where people say they'll drink tea...maybe that's new? Have heard that tea is good for fighting free radicals in your body...things that damage your cells...anti-oxidants? Was watching Gruen Planet the other night and Red Bull was mentioned...reminded me of how I was surprised that the product came up with a warning for pregnant women not to drink it. Gruen said that would actually be a selling point for it! Kind of like that story years ago about how, amid the crack down on cigarette advertising, one brand called itself "Death"...it was an actual selling point!
re "dog whistle" basically means language which has two meanings...most people might take some comments on face value but the 'real'/'intended' audience take some other, more hidden meaning from it. It's just basically a way for some political parties to appeal to more extreme voters without alienating moderates. Not sure where the phrase originated from. Maybe a kind of latent/manifest meaning distinction going on here.
re founding myths re Puritans...yeah, I've mentioned our former conservative Prime Minister here, John Howard (the guy who got his hand crushed by the opposition leader in that You Tube I linked to). He always spoke of "black armband view of history"...the narrative of how Australian aborigines were dispossessed by European settlement etc...have heard of the 'culture wars' in the US...this may be an aspect of it here.
I forget the context of your Audacity comment.
re Breaking Amish...it sounds like a similary themed show to what I watched. The show I watched was "Meet the Amish". There's a follow up, related series to that "Living with the Amish" where Brits live with the Amish. The narrator keeps banging on about how humble his Amish people are. They take pride in it. Pride is a sin, right? Looking at the networks page for the original series, i see that the Amish word for what you describe is called "Rumspringa". The last episode of the latest ep I saw had a Mennonite (?) Amish guy who had a buggy fitted out with flashing lights and a stereo system! I think he just played traditional music though. A Brit said the buggy was "pimped out".
re Hamster Wheel segment...I didn't actually link to iView for that as I know it doesn't work overseas. Were you redirected to that or something? I sometimes access iView at home...I've got a Playstation 3 and there is an app for that, and SBS and Channel 7. iView is the best...has captions. Anyway, found the relevant Hamster Wheel segment on You Tube...bit I was referring to happens just before the first minute is up, but the whole segment is good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-0u9Ad886M
Not exactly sure how to search for that cute ad I saw on Gruen Planet...might insert if I find it. The link I gave for them last time no longer seems to show video in any case...seems to be just a temporary thing at that site. Okay...just editing in that cute ad..."Tan Hong Ming"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UehSJlOQj2I
Speaking of iView, do the US networks have their own apps? Apparently the commercial networks here didn't know how to make money out of online so are only now playing catch up with the non commercial ABC network, of iView. Only Channel 7 has a PS3 app. One network has a PC version of iView, but they don't seem to show programmes I want to catch up on or whatever. Californation has really been stuffed around by one network...they showed a handful of episodes earlier this year and now...nuffink. Saw it in store on DVD...might have to buy the damned thing! Annoying.
re e-readers...have heard that everything you do on them is recorded by the sites...they know what you read, what you highlight etc. Think there was even a legal case where someone's notes were erased by the provider and the user sued them. Forget how that ended. I like the book's method of bookmarking in any case...and the laod times are way shorter for accessing bookmarked stuff! Well, guessing there...I've never owned an e-reader!
Since you mentioned fan fic...do remember Supernatural having an ep mentioning this...where the fans had bro to bro 'action'! Hmm. Guessing that that's based in fact! Ewww!
I did see the phrase "Romnesia" tweeted by someone. Was listening to Radio National's Late Night Live on Tuesday one time for the US correspondent, Bruce Shapiro. He mentioned Mitt agreeing with a lot of Obama's policies in the 3rd debate. What was intriguiting was Shapiro's view that this was a way for Mitt to disillusion swinging voters...make them feel that there's not much difference between him and Obama, so they needn't bother voting. Interesting.
re crazy old people wondering about the attractions of new tech...I did hear that people who don't use Facebook are regarded as "weird". Gruen mentioned the usage of Twitter v Facebook here...think it was 10% for Twitter and multiples of that for Facebook...near 50%?
Just by the by (a phrase I picked up from former PM John Howard!) did our female PM's comments to the opposition leader about his sexism/misogyny make news there? I heard it went viral overseas. Some US sites gave it a big up. It changed the coverage over here, that overseas viral reporting. The press gallery here was interested in the hypocrisy of the PM over this matter. But there was a massive disconnect between the press gallery reportage and the population's reaction to it. E.g. on talk radio over here, the guests on the station I was listening to were taking the press gallery line (even though they weren't part of the press gallery) but loads of women were saying that the PM's comments spoke to them and that the press gallery had missed the entire point of her comments...overseas seemed to hone in on this aspect of her comments.
Anyway, I've taken to recording a weekday show on ABC's digital channel...just a couple of minutes long...show is called The Roast, and this one concerned our PMs attack on the opposition leader...the host mentions a law here preventing them using actual footage from parliament. The Hamster Wheel brought up this law the other day too...it concerns not being able to use footage from parliament to satirise politicians. Do you have that law too?
Here's the segment, from 10/10:
http://bit.ly/Vsq01V
This is the channel's You Tube addy:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RoastNewsUpdate?feature=watch
They recently did an ep on Lance Armstrong and an amusing one the other night re Fidel Castro...21/10
http://bit.ly/WNv31S
Here's a recent one on Donald Trump's demand of Obama...really interesting comment about his You Tube video! 25/10
http://bit.ly/SCJL6N
As a female of the opposite sex, this one may amuse you! 4/10
http://bit.ly/S0icUe
Last one...mainly for the host's parody of the news reader: 28/9
http://bit.ly/PuVLL9
Speaking of which...there was a governor of the Reserve Bank Of Australia who was kind of like that...just more so...here's the guy...don't think it's an ad as such, but just give you his vibe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdpKU6BmOOQ
He used to do ads for a superannuation fund when he left the RBA. If your boyfriend's randy but you aren't, could you see yourself as getting in the mood listening to that guy?
P.S. I watched the finale of Doctor Who last night, which I had recorded earlier. It had the same creatures as in that "Blink" episode you mentioned. The original story was best, but this story was better than the second time those creatures were used. This story was set in New York...the series is now obviously chasing American viewers...maybe I liked it more when it was more British.
P.P.S. Gosh, there was a disturbing American ad on Gruen's finale the other night (couldn't find it via Gruen, but I remembered the deets):
http://bit.ly/RjLXBP
Oh, this is cool...a related link to the one above (literally), from the show Hungry Beast, which I think I've linked to in the past...the video below from that show explains the meaning of "Gruen transfer" (which was the original series of that tv show)...maybe the next Hungry Beast vid which loads may interested you too...didn't watch it, but to do with product placement in tv and movies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuC6FcTfnU
re the Hungry Beast story though, I know that recentlyish the supermarket where I shop moved cold fruit juice bottles from near the chilled desserts section to the other end of the supermarket. Maybe it's the kind of conspiracy the segment was about?
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Re dog travel- Neither side questioned anything about the dog when we were going through, but it is one of those things that if you don’t have the papers and the questions come up it can cause big problems. Rabies is present in the US, and I don’t know if it is any bigger of a problem in Canada, though I doubt it, but in the US dogs are required to have up-to-date rabies vacs just in case they get bit by a carrier, i.e. raccoon, fox, bat, squirrel, etc.
Black Death is also present in US, mostly fleas and prairie dogs. Every now and again you hear about someone actually catching it. They go to the hospital, get pumped full of penicillin and go home.
Re Only in America stories- Any stupid criminal story generally is not something you want other countries hearing – they think we’re dumb enough as it is. Then there have been some hillbilly stories that you hope never see the news – again there is usu. something to do with something extremely stupid going on. When I think about it, though, with the invention of Youtube, don’t know how much of anything can really be kept a secret anymore. Seems like every idiot is determined to post something on YT of his/herself doing something idiotic resulting in injury and wishing as a country you could disown them.
Re tea- drinking tea in the US is becoming slightly more popular because everyone keeps preaching about eating healthier, and I know tea is supposedly good for you, whereas coffee I think has fewer benefits. Personally just don’t like coffee, but wanted a hot beverage other than hot chocolate. What is ridiculous is trying to go to a restaurant and ordering hot tea. Waitress/waiter usually gives you a funny look, especially if it is warmer out, even though the people at the next table ordered coffee and no one batted an eyelash.
Re Redbull warnings- in the US any drink that has a high amount of caffeine will come with a warning on it to the effect that anyone sensitive to caffeine and pregnant women should not drink it. Think there is another group that is mentioned sometimes but can’t remember who, maybe people on certain kinds of meds. So most of the s-called energy drinks have that warning, some brands of soda, and even came across some drink in grocery store that was supposedly water mixed with healthy stuff where every type carried the caffeine warning. Remember the show True Blood brought out a blood orange soda that they marketed as a gimmick promotion the year the show came out that carried the warning. Tried some, and if I remember correctly the caffeine content was so high that I was only able to drink a quarter of a bottle at a time without getting a nasty headache.
Couple days ago a story came out blaming an energy drink over here called 5-hour Energy for contributing to several deaths, saying the high caffeine content was partially to blame. Did a fast search looking for the particular story and turns out anther one, Monster Energy drink, is also getting blamed for some deaths. The way some people practically mainline these drinks I’m not really surprised about the health problems, but I think that has more to do with consumers than the company. None of these drinks were made to be the main source of a person’s daily liquid consumption, and when they’re mixed with alcohol I can see it being even more problematic. Realistically, though, no one needs as much caffeine in such a concentrated amount that these drinks contain.
Re audacity- had mentioned it as a freeware that could be used to try to listen to the reversed lyrics in songs
Re Mennonites- in comparison to the stricter Amish sects, the Mennonites are pretty relaxed. They are allowed to use electricity, and have heard of them owning and driving modern cars, though think the cars tend to be for business use.
Re Pride as sin- yes, pride is a sin, but how many really super religious people don’t tend to have some kind of pride for how much they are giving up or devoting themselves to god or whatever? It is just another way of subtly (or not in some cases) of saying we’re better people than you because we are so devote that we give up this or that for our god, sort of like certain Baptists sects that don’t allow their followers to listen to music or dance.
Re Hamster Wheel segment- when I clicked on your link it took me to iView, and went looking on the site iView was the only thing that was coming up with any video clips. Loved in the clip how even the priest was completely clueless how to argue with him. You would think as a religious leader going to any rally where you are using religion to be anti whatever, you’d come up with at least some argument other than ‘the bible says no.’ You’d have thought they’d learn by now that people are going to try to get you to elaborate beyond that, especially when there is so much in the bible no one lives by any more.
Re Gruen Planet colour blind ad- once I read some of the comments and realized the full message behind it I thought it was really cute. Didn’t know where they had filmed it by just watching it – the kids could speak English really well, but the uniforms threw me. Thought he boy’s face was priceless when the girl said he was her boyfriend.
Re tv network apps- I don’t know about any apps for the gaming consoles – don’t have a current one and have found myself just not keeping up with all the online features for them. I know that several have apps for tablets and phones, but they aren’t always full content apps. Like several of the local news shows have the apps that you can keep up with news stories, weather, and traffic, and then their parent network might have an app that you can watch clips, get the schedule, news for shows on that network. One or two might allow you to view full episodes. Each one is different on content they let you access, and the cable channels are more hit and miss. The cable channels usu. don’t let you see eps because of deals with like iTunes where you can purchase the ep either next day or within a few days of it airing.
Re e-readers- can fully believe they track everything. Have an app on my computer because there were a couple authors I read that the books were only available in e-format and you can’t delete the book just from the app, you have to go to the company website and delete it from there. It’s like got one off of amazon and they track those downloads the same way the track your search history and do the recommendations for you whenever you get on their website.
Re fan fic- can’t say anything really about the Supernatural fan community as I don’t watch the show even, but from other fan community experience combinations of the main characters tend to be the most popular pairings, and since the two main characters on the show are brothers, add in the good vs. evil plot and sounds like it would be ripe for bro on bro action. Don’t know about now or with the TV show, but when just the books were out there was some bro on bro floating around in the Vampire Diaries fan community. Don’t follow that show either so not sure about any more. I can’t think of any of the fandoms that I personally follow where there are family characters that are main characters where it becomes an issue like it does in the Supernatural community. The closest would probably be the Buffy fan community where there are some Spike/Angel pairings, but since they are related only through their vampire lineage it changes the rules.
Re PM comments- I don’t remember seeing anything about it, but with the election so close at that point pretty much the only thing in the news was related to that.
Re real footage for satirical use- I have never heard of a law like that, and I think I’ve seen some clips on like John Stewart or the Colbert Report where they use clips from inside the Congressional halls, and there are some semi-editorial political programs that use the same type of clips when they are satirizing something. I think that it is covered by the Free Speech Amendment, so don’t think a law like that would fly.
Re Roast clips- if all news where like this I would watch it more instead of reading news stories online. I wasn’t aware it was still such an issue if Castro was alive or not; was under the impression his brother had pretty much taken over running things. As for the health poster, this is why you don’t out source design work to places that don’t even have basic biology classes or where kids don’t stay in school long enough to learn basic biology Wonder how many people were supposed to proof the poster before it went to print and went ‘oh I’m sure it’s fine. No need to double check. Here’s my stamp of approval.’
Re Bernie Fraser- “If your boyfriend's randy but you aren't, could you see yourself as getting in the mood listening to that guy?” LOL- what you do in that case is get a long recording of this guy, glue headphones to the boyfriend’s head, and wait the few seconds it would take him to go to sleep. Then leave it on to keep him asleep.
Re St. Pat’s horror ad- Wonder if this was done as an internet scheme or if it was the real deal. Wouldn’t remember the message at the end, just the uber creepy face set up. Looked like it belonged in a Tim Burton film. That will be one of those images that will randomly haunt me for several months now.
Re Gruen Transfer and product placement- have heard of both. In the US you’re seeing enclosed shopping malls fall out of fashion right now, and more outdoor ones take their place, would like to see a video that explains the techniques used to keep you spending in the outdoor malls more – probably something about escaping the weather. Have never been to an Ikea store but have heard about the insanity in trying to get around.
Don’t know if this was the vid you were talking about, but it is about product placement and how the brands are messing with what is being seen in the show/movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIvCfNKg8qM&feature=relmfu
I’ve mentioned the show White Collar before, and a big piece of their funding must come from Ford because ever damn season there are several shots or really crappy dialogue bits pushing the Taurus. What’s just as bad are what the clip called displacement. Always thought that is happened because they couldn’t get the rights for the real product or because there would be an issue down the road with dvd sales that they didn’t want to deal with. To find out that it is completely intentional makes it that much worse.
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Was thinking that you might have mentioned Hurricane Sandy here...I thought I'd leave it to my next post instead of editing it in. Since these replies are so infrequent, I can't remember where you're from...were you affected by Sandy? I used to chat with someone on email and I suspect that they may have been affected by Sandy...think they were out downtown NY way.
re Black Death in the US...weird, right? I think I read somewhere re chicken or bird flu or whatever it was called that some people caught it because...as farmers, they'd (don't read if your squeamish!) they'd such out the mucous in the chicken's nostrils...for some reason...make them breathe better? Why? I'm assuming I didn't dream this!
Recently there was something about there being an indirect cure for a horse to human disease that has killed people in the racing industry over here...I think they cured the disease for some animal, which meant that the disease couldn't pass to the horse...which meant it couldn't pass to humans...something like that. Equine flu virus I think it might have been called. Just liked that story because humans were indirectly the major beneficiary of the breakthrough! Maybe that was intentional...but it saved a lot of time...if they tried having a direct cure for humans or whatever there'd still be years to wait for clinical trials or whatnot.
re idiots and You Tube...we have something called "schoolies" here...that's where high school leavers left off steam after their exams. Think there's a picture of one guy out on a balcony sleeping off a hangover...there's no rail on the balcony either! What do yous call "schoolies"? Anyway, I think this is the pic...it may be on You Tube too:
http://static.stuff.co.nz/1353380615/724/7974724.jpg
I read that he only went inside because he heard security knocking or something. Probably a stupid way to die! Speaking of which, found a You Tube posted by an American...but it's for an Australian song...used for PSA campaign or something:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw
No idea how an American came across that!
Hmm...there was also an ugly story recently where I live...a French girl and her girlfriends were on a bus here and singing French pop songs. Some git gave her the hoary old chestnut "Speak English!" or something like that...it got quite ugly with some other people on the bus joining in on the fray. Not sure how much exposure that got outside of here (and France, obviously). I really hope that the dickheads involved get charged with something. Someone on the bus videod the dickheads and uploaded it to You Tube. I'm sure there are quite a few dickheads who would say to someone "You're in Astraya now Speak Astrayan!".
(There was something in the paper today - 29/11 - about two of the suspects having been identified and spoken to by police...not sure if any charges laid though). You ever see that meme of George W. Bush...saying he's a merkin? That was funny!
re tea...apart from warm weather, why would a waitress give you a funny look for ordering this? Boston Tea Party aftershock? Speaking of coffee...not sure if I mentioned this before I tried a new restaurant and I thought that they make great coffee! Just having coffee there, mostly, as it just makes me realise how much I'd been putting up with. However, there was a story in the Hun (mock name for Murdoch's tabloid The Herald Sun) about tea was good for you...akin to getting an extra serve of fruit or vegetable or some such. They did say that not enough research to show which tea is best, re black, green...and whatever the other one was! Or whether milk lessens it health benefit. Anyway, have been having tea recently...harder to do bad tea too! Forgot to mention, a waitress where I used to get coffee asked me wny I didn't order it anymore there and I mentioned the stuff above. She called me a "traitor"! Today too! First time around I wasn't very politic...she enquired what brand of coffee the other place used but I said something to the effect that maybe it's the person who makes the coffee...I think she may have been one of the people who made my coffee for me when I used to have it there! Anyway, there's that old saying about poor tradesmen...
re water mixed with health stuff...hmm...guessing that a lot that is just lolly water...sweeteners etc. plus whatever vitamins or whatnot will help sell it. Vaguely remember absurd posters re brand x of bottled water not having sugar in it or some such...jolly good then...water isn't supposed to have that in any case! Our tap water is meant to be good...and it's probably just as good as mineral water. Do remember an English comedian giving the line that "Evian is just naive spelled backwards!". Might have mentioned that here...gosh, years back?
re 'mainline' Monster energy drink or whatever...only know of the phrase due to a Lou Reed song...about injecting drugs...I'm assuming people don't syringe the contents of energy drinks into their veins! Do remember that the original Coke actually had...cocaine in it! Hmm...a special treat for the kiddies back in the day!
Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but there is a difference between same branded breakfasted in the US and Australia...Nutri Grain in the US would be nutritious...over here, they have a ridiculous amount of sugar in them...and the softdrinks too...40g or more of sugar in them. Not sure what that works out in tea spoons...not sure if remember correctly, but an amount like that might equate to 20 teaspoons of sugar in a serve. I'm sure even a child would not drink something if you put 20 teaspoons of sugar in their drink!
re Mennonites...that docu series had strict and lax Amish. One of the guys had a pimped up buggy! Flashing, coloured lights and even a stereo, I think.
re pride as sin...have you heard of...gosh...now I remember...Pascal's wager? It was a philosophical reason to believe in God. The logic goes that following religion isn't that much of a burden and if God exists, you are rewarded...kind of like betting on the existence of God, but just paying a small wager...which might be like, say, going to Church once a week.
re Hamster Wheel and priest completely clueless how to argue with him...the bit I liked, I thought it was a politician who was stumped...he blithely mentioned the bible and the satirist said something like "I just assumed that you were familiar with the bible" and the victim walked off in a huff. Was that a priest?
re that Gruen Planet ad with the two Asian children...how did you originally interpret it? It's sort of implied that you were negative about until you read the comments below the video.
re apps...sort or related, my PS3 console and 3G mobile wifi modem aren't talking to each other anymore! I think it's an issue with the console...maybe caused by me using the modem to install an update for the Sony store...for days I lost the Wallpaper that I downloaded ages ago and now I can't go online. Just a total pain and Sony aren't helping, saying they don't and have never supported 3G connections.
re e-readers...not sure if I mentioned this, but I think someone sued Amazon for deleting their comments on a e-book. From memory, they won that case...Amazon had no right to remove their comments on their own device! re tracking users...I think I mentioned Facebook keeping tabs on what sites you visits...so, it would be best to use a different browser for using Facebook.
re fan-fic...who do you think would be behind the bro on bro action in Supernatural, say? Trolls? You mention Vampire Diaries...you got me onto that! I got off it pretty quick too...not sure how long I stuck that one out...1 or 2 series? 3? When did you drop that show? [sarcasm]Thankyou![/sarcasm].
re our single, childless, atheist Prime Minister's speech going viral, it was this one...it was the reception of the speech overseas which changed the dynamic of how the same speech was originally reported here (does the You Tube play for you in that article?):
http://nyr.kr/SQ8VNb
re not being able to use parliamentary footage for satirical purposes, yeah, it sounds a bit precious over here. The Chaser guys (Hamster Wheel) ended their current series, I think, with another dip at this. Think they got the oppposition leader (the subject of our PMs tirade, above) to say that they could use any footage that they like...but in the studio it was pointed out that this was a meaningless gesture unless the laws were changed. They had been taking to having recreations of parliamentary proceedings carried out in a satirical way as a result...making politicians look ridiculous. Oh...here's something by them on this...I watched up to the first 90 seconds...some good stuff there too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHfX5wRVngU
That The Roast clip I linked to with the African American woman on this Australian show doing an 'impression' of our female PM was another joke about being unable to use parliamentary footage for satirical purposes...I actually preferred the impression to the real thing!
re your comment that:
"LOL- what you do in that case is get a long recording of this guy, glue headphones to the boyfriend’s head, and wait the few seconds it would take him to go to sleep. Then leave it on to keep him asleep."
Ah, but it cuts both ways, does it not? What if your boyfriend is randy and he gets YOU to listen to Bernie Fraser? You fall asleep...and when you wake you think to yourself "Hmm...that's weird...I don't remember being knickerless when I went to bed". Pre-emptive apology...sorry if that's in poor taste...
re St. Pat's horror ad...I remember one show here showing an ad used on a gay station or something (?)... - again, if you are squeamish, best to not read this! I won't try finding the You Tube! - You see a crotch shot of a naked man. He has a flaccid penis. He gets aroused and the tip of his penis opens up and...starts singing! Forget what show that was on but it was on free to air tv and wasn't pixellated or anything (think I mentioned here about a UK show being censored in the US...there was a funny sketch about muscle bound gym goers...they were naked. I was trying to avoid looking at their crotches but when I did, I did get a laugh! They were big guys...with very small gonads. That was no doubt the joke...drug use joke no doubt.
Thanks for that Hungry Beast clip re branding! It wasn't the one I linked to...which is odd, as the source is the same and official! Just in case it works second time around...
How Shopping Malls Make You Buy (HUNGRY BEAST)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuC6FcTfnU
Have heard of stuff like grocery stores wafting the smell of baking bread in store to get you to spend and stuff like that. There is also the issue of where products are placed in the store...things like height and visibility are crucial. I did like that bit at the end of your Hungry Beast clip re no branding...I actually like that, re jeans, I could do without the fancy stitching for branding on the back pockets...just don't like them. Nor do I like paying money to major corporations to promote their product! A walking billboard for them? No thankyou!
re same clip and in show advertising. Man, times have changed! Look how much more subtle it used to be decades ago!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jQOYQ7kJyk
Did you spot the product placement? It was right at the start!
Have heard in the context of Australian tv shows something similar to displacement...sort of...actual brands are digitally inserted into tv show items...not sure if the original shows had actual branding on them, but now you might see a well known brand digitally inserted onto a product someone on the show is using...with one Australian tv drama I think it was the brand on the breakfast cereal someone was eating.
Forgot to mention...another odd use of branding or whatever...there's a classic rock song which was altered to sell a major grocery chain here. The odd thing is that the altered version got played in full on some commercial FM stations! In other words, the distinction between content and advertising is blurred. You can hear the song played in store...constantly...must drive the staff nuts! Anyway, here's the original band playing their classic rock song with doctored lyrics to sell the grocery chain (I think someone else originally did the music and lyrics but the band got on board at some point):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB383WkXcqE
You heard of that band? Status Quo. One station plays a couple of tracks of theirs here. In their home country of Britain, they've had a ridiculous number of hits there...40+ from memory. I don't think they've been that successful here...just those two songs which still get played here.
P.S. saw, I think, an American analysis of O'Bama's win. To the effect that the people realised that he had inherited a mess and would need more time to fix it. That's the kind of analysis you could expect to get in an Australian election. Maybe for the US you'd expect people to vote for Mitt because 'it's the economy stoopid'. If that had happened, you would expect Americans to have forgotten that the economy collapsed in W's final days, under his watch.
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Re Hurricane Sandy- wasn’t affected by Sandy, except for a little rain coming our way, which we desperately need anyway.
Re farmers cleaning out chicken sinuses- farmers probably do in order to try and keep the entire flock healthy, or find the sick birds early enough so the disease can be kept from spreading. Don’t know if those are the actual reasons, but sound plausible.
Re “schoolies”- This will probably need correcting, but to my understanding, Australian high schoolers have to sit for exams beyond just their regular class tests when exiting high school. In the US, we don’t have that. As long as the student receives passing grades in all classes, s/he graduates and goes on to whatever they had planned. It is very rare that high school classes are graded solely by tests any more, and there may or may not be a cumulative final at the end of the semester. Even when there is a cumulative final, it depends on the teacher as to how much it counts towards the final grade; in some classes it may be worth only the same amount as a regular test, in others it may be able to move a student’s grade up or down a letter or two. At least that is how public schooling is set up here. There may be some private schools that are set up differently. The IB programme is the only one I know of in the US that has students sit for exams beyond the normal course work. So, with all that being said, the only thing we call last year high schoolers is seniors, but they have that title from the moment they’re done with their junior year.
In the US, the trend right now is to take pressure off of regular tests and not make them so important to a kid’s grade, while at the same time pressuring all the schools to do really well on the national/state tests that have yet to prove to be on any real use.
The picture you linked to of the guy sleeping on the rail-less balcony is something you’re more likely to find over here at a university after finals, right before they get ready to go out and party.
Re Dumb ways to Die vid- that is highly disturbing, especially when the whole point of it is to warn about train dangers or whatever. Who the hell is going to remember the train part when everything else is so absolutely ridiculous. Granted there have been some instances where you hear about people dying from ways mentioned in the song, but you’d think there would be a better way to warn against the train dangers instead of that disturbing little song.
Re tea- I get funny looks for ordering hot tea because hardly anyone over here drinks it, especially at restaurants. If people order a hot beverage it is either coffee or hot chocolate. Have heard about health benefits of tea, though don’t know where the research comes from. My understanding is that white and green tea are better for you than black teas.
Re water- there is a spring water brand called Ozarka over here that I like. Don’t care for most bottled waters because they just taste like bottled tap water, especially the ones that advertise themselves as purified. Remember the drinking fountains on my university campus used to always taste funny and often there was an odd smell to the water.
Re ‘mainline’- mainline started out as just referring to drugs I think, but over here it is now a way of saying that someone consumes a horrendous amount of any substance, ie sugar/sweets, coffee (caff or decaff), soda, etc
Re Pascal’s wager- While Pascal was talking about Christianity, it depends on what religion you follow and how closely you follow it as to how much of a burden it is, and whether you know what you’re giving up because you converted when you’re old enough to understand the differences or if you were born into it and don’t know anything else. Also, are you going to follow a personal belief of the rules, or what the doctrine of the sect says. For instance, the Catholic church doesn’t like birth control, but there are a lot of Catholic women that use some kind, whether injected, patch, or oral, and most men use condoms.
Re Hamster Wheel on Gay Marriage clip- the first guy he interviewed was politician that just walked off in a huff and the second guy he interviewed was a priest the was bumbling trying to come up with an argument
Re Gruen Planet colour blind ad- I was just completely confused as to the colour blind phrase that they were using because I was unable to tell the differences in nationality of the kids, and by my eye I couldn’t see a difference in skin colour.
Re Sony problems- I’ve heard that Sony has become a bit of a bear to work with as far as updating, getting useful help, and playing nice with other equipment that isn’t Sony. My parents got me a Sony point and shoot camera a few years back, and didn’t realize until went to get a memory card that Sony isn’t compatible with all the other cards on the market, and the cards never go on sale. Been looking into getting a Blu-ray player, and have seen several places that Sony is supposedly the best on the market, have read reviews where setting up the machines’ wireless takes extra equipment, more downloads that don’t always work, and some other problems. Also want to get a player I can turn regionless and remember with DVD players Sony was the worst on the market for that.
Re Facebook- have you heard how Facebook is now trying to get people to order gifts and merchandise off their site? With the privacy rules constantly changing, I don’t know why anyone would actually trust Facebook with enough info for something like that. Guess with the games on there though people were giving away that info before. Just don’t really trust Facebook, I guess. They’re trying to expand too far out from where they started.
Re fanfic- I don’t think trolls are behind the Dean/Sam fic action, and speaking as someone who has been reading fic in different fandoms for around 15 years now, there aren’t a lot of trolls that actually write fic; they comment sometimes and are their usu nasty selves, but they don’t usu take the time to produce anything substantial. Best you get is sometimes a short comic strip or picture mocking the tv/movie/book/etc or the fans, and the quality is usu something that can be thrown together in about five minutes. Every now and again for super popular fandoms (Harry Potter and Twilight, for example) I think sort of anti-fandoms develop, where people form communities whose sole purpose is to mock it, but it doesn’t tend to be as malicious as the usu troll and they don’t go around tearing down (metaphorically) the fan work by those who like the show/movie etc. They just kind of band together and talk about how stupid the work and fans are.
Back to the Dean/Sam thing. With fan works, there tends to be a suspension of societal norms in many cases, especially in shows with supernatural themes, and I’m not just talking about who was hooking up between the sheets or whatever surface. Are you familiar with the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy at all? Had a laugh when that exploded in popularity how many people were so shaken up by it and thought it was so ground breaking. Start looking into a fandom and find stuff that is of a similar vein, and better written. Found it even funnier when happened upon an interview with the author and she said it had started out as a Twilight fanfic. Given what I know of the Twilight series, which isn’t much, I imagine you could find some very dark fic without looking very hard.
Re Vampire Diaries- I dropped that I think sometime in the first series, mainly because it was on a bad time for me to watch. We didn’t have a DVR system at the time, didn’t care enough to watch online (and I think there was a long delay in getting the eps up), and didn’t care enough to set up a VCR to record. Plus I was going back and forth between uni and home. The little of it I did see I didn’t care for because there were just too many changes from the books. When a book series I read gets adapted to tv/film, I usu try to give it a chance, but it rarely meets my expectations and I give up.
Re PM speech- had seen it before. The full version was on the side of the YT clip you originally posted and went ahead and watched it.
Re "LOL- what you do in that case is get a long recording of this guy, glue headphones to the boyfriend’s head, and wait the few seconds it would take him to go to sleep. Then leave it on to keep him asleep."
Ah, but it cuts both ways, does it not? What if your boyfriend is randy and he gets YOU to listen to Bernie Fraser? You fall asleep...and when you wake you think to yourself "Hmm...that's weird...I don't remember being knickerless when I went to bed".
In that case you kick his a$$ out the door. If he can’t accept no as answer, find a way to deal with it himself, and results to that – he’s gone.
Re shopping mall traps- I tend to hate the crowds that go with a mall, so these tricks the designers use to keep you there tend to just make me more pissed off and want out faster. The rare exception is a bookstore, but they tend to be less crowded, quieter, more peaceful than most stores. The clip mentions the stores being quiet in contrast to the loud music in the mall, but most stores over here are still playing music inside, so that isn’t much of a contrast to being in the mall space. Also, over here, many of the main mall entrances are actually through large department stores, which do have things right inside the door they’re trying to get you to buy, so wonder how that plays into the decompression and relaxing they talk about early in the clip.
As for grocery stores, I tend to be horrible in that once I know where everything is, I tend to go right to it and not wander around. My mom drives me nuts when I go shopping with her as she tends to go down every aisle whether she needs something down there or not. What is bad about the store we shop at the most is the seafood is in the back of the store, running along the back wall at right about the middle of the store, and the aisles are set up perpendicular to that. There are like three or four aisles that the seafood smell just follows you along the whole length of the store. Some times it get so bad I want to gag.
Re subtle product placement- I know, he looked so natural standing there with his hand at just the right height to show the name on the bottle.
Haven’t heard of the brands being digitally inserted over here yet. Think they get taken out sometimes, but not inserted.
Re Status Quo song- maybe the band was trying to get a following in Australia by doing the commercial. I know that sometimes over here I try to track down songs used in commercials, which usu leads to sampling other songs by the band (if I like the full song). Don’t remember ever hearing a band doing a song like that though for a company. The band’s sound sounds familiar, but can’t say I recognize the name. Ah! Just found they did Roll Over Beethoven, which is a decently popular song over here.
Re president election- there was a lot of voting this past election that tended to be more against one or the other instead of for someone. The Republicans kept making an economy argument, and that was their big argument against Obama, but there were a lot of social issues that Republicans tend to be very backward on, and they had some of their boys say the wrong thing on camera. Realistically, an economy problem can be easily fixed to the majority’s satisfaction as long an you have people willing to work together on it, but social issues tend to be harder to fix if you get people in there that are making laws against different topics (ie gay marriage), and there were several people that were in office saying they were going to work on the economy and fix that and instead focused on social issues and doing their best to conform the laws to be in line with their religious beliefs.
Word Count: 2190
Good to hear Hurricane Sandy wasn’t a big issue for you...if you’ve said what state you live, are replies are so infrequent it escapes me at the moment! I used to think that hurricanes were bigger than cyclones. Australia is such a fat island a cyclone on a weather map looks small...but you see a hurricane on a weather map around Florida and it looks epic by comparison. Think they’re just different names for the same thing...there were some news stories comparing major hurricane and cyclone systems in history during the Sandy scare and they both look equally scary. Don’t think cyclones have been such a menace in Australia though...there was our most ‘famous’ cyclone, Tracy, from decades ago...which was the most lethal and damaging. Think there was another bad one a few years ago...maybe worse re damage costs...its name escapes me at the moment. In years past I have found it odd to hear of ‘mini tornadoes’ where I live...but maybe they actually are twisters...hadn’t really worried about earthquakes here either but last year, I think, I actually felt one. Sometimes people would ask if you felt an earthquake, and honestly I hadn’t. But this time...I literally thought that a neighbour was jumping up and down on furniture at the time! I suppose I notice an earthquake it MUST be bad!
Every time the world forgets that the U.S. has mass shootings, America reminds us. That obviously made the news here recently. Remember however months ago I linked to an article by a former conservative Prime Minister here? He said gun control was his proudest achievement, from memory. And how he was in the US talking about stuff and getting good vibes from his conservative audience...until he mentioned his efforts in gun control. There was a photo of him around that time period wearing an obvious bullet proof vest. Maybe at the time that was considered an overreaction on his part...I think he was just following security advice. That was before his laws were enacted. From the sounds of it, America is becoming more “European” as far as gun control goes, would that impression be right? As in Americans becoming more ‘reasonable’ (from our perspective) as far as the ‘rights’ of people to bear arms. How are the Republicans responding to the massacre? Towing the NRA line? There was a story in the paper how the NRA was going to make a “meaningful” contribution to the debut after the massacre...then their president or whoever says he wanted to install armed security guards at all schools! M’kay. Being America, I might have wanted to buy shares in gun manufacturing companies before he made that meaningful contribution! Also heard about the US’ gun buy back scheme or whatever you called it. Over here, I think people got money for their guns. Sort of surprised that the US is offering coupons! Everything seems to be about the coupons in the US...what’s that all about? Perpaps I thought people wouldn’t be too pleased with coupons, but no. Did hear on the news about gun related deaths as a result in some area (California?) were down by a third. That’s a good result. Hopefully it continues.
re chicken farmers...maybe it’s a 3rd world kind of thing or something...I don’t think sucking on chicken nostrils is standard practices elsewhere! I used to read books by a very famous English author who wrote fact based accounts of his time as a vet...he became famous because of the books, no doubt. That was James Herriot. There have been at least one popular tv series based on that...maybe a movie or too as well. Have noticed, years after the tv series, a new one out now...”Young James Herriot”. Anyway, lots of graphic detail in his novels. Never watched the series, but I think in that, or at least in docu type shows I’ve seen vets with their arms full up the bung hole of cows. Wouldn’t think that would be standard practice in the 3rd world. They might even consider us odd!
re Schoolies...yeah, kids who’ve completed their exams and going away to blow off steam. Have heard another term related to them...”toolies”...something along the lines of older men hanging around them...would have thought to take advantage of drunk girls or whatnot, but have read something recently which suggests that older men go looking for a fight with the schoolies...so, not sure exactly what “toolies” connotes.
There was some international survey of students in the news recently...Australia was apparently doing badly in maths and whatnot. Think it might have been attributed by some - letter writers, perhaps - to our newish system of testing the abilities of students. Think we’ve discussed here in the past. The suggestion being that now teachers spend most of their time testing the abilities of students rather than actually teaching them content! If Australia is following the US route then perhaps the US was doing equally as badly as Australia, if not worse? Think I found the story here, and it seems we are doing worse than yous:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/maths-and-english--nation-cou ld-do-better-20121211-2b7vl.html
The minister quoted at the start is a former musician who I believe I have linked music videos here to you in the past...”Harrisburg” perhaps, and “Short memory”, maybe.
re dumb ways to die...I don’t think the full song gets played...think I may have seen ads which excerpt bits of the song. I was surprised that an American linked to that full song...pretty obscure for an American to discover, I would have thought! Speaking of dumb ways to die...in the Murdoch tabloids here in recent weeks there have been some pictures of idiotic car drivers...a woman reading a book while on a freeway. More recently there was a picture of a young male with both feet out of the window! Do you get stories like that in the US? It just seems insane! A letter to the editor alerted to me to another equally potentially lethal practice...taking photos of people doing insane things when driving...like reading a book while driving on the freeway. As in you could just as easily be involved in a fatal crash trying to do the ‘right’ thing by documenting idiot drivers. Anway, re that song Dumb ways to die, have you heard of the Darwin awards? Think there have been numerous editions of that book. Who knows, maybe the song is actually factual?
re teas...that Murdoch tabloid mentioned there being 3 kinds of teas. Took a while to get a productive search term, but I found an article on Wiki which mentions 4 kinds of tea: green, black, oolong and white. Was wondering if white was one of them, because either I or the restaurant staff I was talking to were thinking that adding milk to tea means “white” tea! Pretty sure I’ve tried oolong recentlyish and wasn’t that blown away by it...so hoping that some place has white tea...just want to give it a burl. Mostly drink Earl Gray. Sometimes English breakfast. Had an Irish tea the other day...half expecting it to be coffee or something! Which tea do you drink? Do have beverages at the Pancake Parlour...do like 3 teaspoons of maple syrup in them! Used to have that in my coffee, but now mainly drink tea but still like the maple syrup!
re water...not sure what the reputation for tap water is in the US. Where I live I think it’s regarded as great...some states or cities seem to have a bad reputation for it. Think I remember there being an English tv series or something called “Don’t drink the water”...perhaps it was set in a foreign country or something. If you’re tap water has a pong to it...is that just where you live, or indicative or US tap water? I can drink the tap water here, no problems.
re Pascal’s wager...would you find it a burden? With beliefs nowadays, there is the argument that it’s like a shopping exercise...you mix and match the bits of religions you like...so it’s less doctrinal or rusted on to a particular church...more personal and individual.
re Gruen planet colour blind ad...oh yeah! Without looking at it again, maybe we’re talking about shades of grey here? As in there was a colour difference, but slight? From memory, the You Tube comment was saying it was basically an ethnic difference between the two or something.
re Sony and compatibility...not sure if I’ve mentioned this here - like years ago, perhaps! - the money is in the IP...there was the VHS and Betamax wars of the 80s or whatever it was. If it was Philips or JVC or both which invented VHS, they got a cut of the price of every VHS sold by any other manufacturer. Maybe your Sony example isn’t an example of that, but obviously Sony wants to make sure it makes money off you after you buy the product. re BluRay machines...I think Sony often get mentioned for the PS3...as in you get one of the better BluRay players quite apart from the gaming machine. Don’t watch a lot of BluRay on my PS3 but I have done so. Not sure, but maybe the PS3 doesn’t have a memory of what you’re watching, so it will remember to return to a scene or whatever once your restart the computer. If you go PS3, you may want to see what kind of 3rd party remotes work with it, in case you don’t like the look of the PS3’s own remote. Have heard good things about a US BluRay player...Oppo? It’s mentioned here as a good machine and one which handles different region discs. Maybe it is pricier than others...can’t remember what other brand got mentioned positively in this respect but was much cheaper...Samsung? Something like that in any case.
re MyFace...that was in the news recently...Zuckerberg’s sister or whatever posted some family pics on the site and because of the site’s default privacy settings, others were able to see them and they sort of went viral. She complained about it. Got much sympathy...well, the sarcastic kind! Found a story on this with a link to the pic and some tweets by the YouFace’s founder’s sister:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/us-news-blog/2012/dec/27/facebook -founder-sister-zuckerberg-photo
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jpmoore/mark-zuckerbergs-sister-complains-of-f acebook-pri
re trolls and fan-fic...there have been stories here which I find disturbing...related to trolls who celebrate the death of someone who makes the news...not even famous people...think. One such source was an ep of this show:
http://www.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/overview/507/Trolls
There was also a story on Media Watch here on the subject...mentions how a US case was misrepresented in some media here as a troll related legal case:
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3592056.htm
re 50 shades of grey - yeah, it has popped up in the media in recent times. You know our Speedo wearing conservative party opposition leader? He’s read it. In light of his recent reluctance to read documents which blunt his political messages, he’s been bagged by some commentators as having his reading priorities wrong! With that female Prime Minister viral video re misogyny, I thought you said you hadn’t of seen it, so that’s why I linked to it. Related to that topic was an interview a female journalist had with Mr. Speedo...a conservative party powerbroker or whatever later called her a “cow” for her interview...the following video, if you want to watch it, has Mr. Speedo admit to not reading something relevant to what he is commenting on...I suppose the first 4 minutes are relevant to this...I didn’t look beyond that...this was another case of the woman getting 1 up on Mr. Speedo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXhbg80E2JE
Anyway, have come across comments in article or in the media whatever saying that it’s not a well written book. Best selling book in the UK or something, I believe. Story in today’s paper (of this edit: 06/01) about self-published work which goes onto top the Kindle market...50 shades was obviously on top of that list. Maybe writing stuff for free on the web can eventually pay well?
re shopping mall traps...speaking of which, hated today...maybe it’s the heat - 41 degrees - but it was impossible to find a free table today in a megaplex today...I mean tables not tied to a specific chain. Must have done a half marathon trying to find a seat! Some kind lady let me share her table! That’s a first for me. Think I forgot to mention last time...usually small serve fruit juice was near the chilled desserts in a supermarket but then they changed it...had to trudge to the opposite end of the shop to get a drink...now they’ve changed it back again! WTF? Is there a rationale to this? They think you will explore the store if you can’t find stuff? Think I’ve read that men and women shop differently...women browse, yeah? I just like to find it and kill it. And you expect it to be where it always is. Just bugs me when they muck you around like that. Did I link to that Hungry Beast vid or whatever re how companies pay good money to have their brands displayed at certain heights on the shelf? That’s the equivalent of location, location, location, I suppose! Ah, just remembered...you think it is a coincidence that all the sweets are at the cash register? Who doesn’t love a child bawling their eyes out because mummy won’t buy her a Freddo Frog or whatever?
re music in malls etc...not sure if I’ve mentioned this in the past...I had a pizza at a so called “Russian” pizza restaurant. Not sure what made the pizza ‘Russian’, but anyhoo...the place was playing death metal type music! Asked the only guy working there about that and he made a point of alerting me to an ad that was just about to play on the metal programme...it was an ad for his restaurant! Just a really odd marketing choice, I thought...well, at least as far as playing the music in the restaurant goes. Perhaps an odd choice of clientele to chase as well? The bogan crowd?
Sort of related...went into this eyewear store and it looked quite bohemian. Asked about the music playing...New Orleans type jazz, from memory. The store owner said that he had paid consultants to create the look and sound of the store. Found that odd...I’m guessing that genuine bohemian type stores have the ability to style their stores for free...like birds, their taste in choosing the ‘right’ furniture is genetic, perhaps?
As far as the semiotics of architecture goes, I think the well known academic example of that would be how these megaplexes or whatever don’t have windows...it’s sort of a timeless zone. I think things like casinos work like that too...forget what the analysis of that is...you spend waaay more time in the place because you haven’t noticed that time has flown? Spend more money at the venue that way, presumably.
re Status Quo song...no, I wouldn’t think they needed to lift their profile...probably a classic rock kind of band. Was going to say that one classic hits station here pretty much plays two of their songs regularly, but I just looked at a compilation album on Wiki for the band and I suppose that their best known songs are:
Rockin’ all over the world
Down down (the supermarket song)
Rollover lay down
Whatever you want
The last song and the supermarket song are perhaps the two that I had in mind as being constantly played, even to this day, by one mainstream commercial FM station. The first song too probably gets played a bit too. There is currently an indie type Australian rock band gettting some critical acclaim in the UK and US too, perhaps, called Tame Impala, I think. Pretty sure that their currentish single ‘borrows’ a riff from Status Quo...the 3rd one in that list. Did hear some of a song by a US blues guitarist (Gary Clarke Jr.?) - think I read a blurb by Time magazine calling him the next Jimi Hendrix or something...the song I heard sounded to me like it ‘borrowed’ the riff from a great Black Sabbath song. Anyway, just the one Status Quo song gets played in the US? Apparently they are the most charting act in the UK or something...as far as top 40 songs go...some factoid like that in any case. Maybe 40 plus such songs? They wouldn’t have been anywhere near that successful here, and even less successful in the US, by the sounds of it. Australia had an act called Mental As Anything...by the sounds of it they were our Status Quo, as far as a heap of charting songs goes...
Maybe you could answer a question for me...I did hear somewhere that an Australian song is known in the US, but it’s basically from the Halloween context...it’s a favourite song of mine by them in any case...how well known is this song?
Skyhooks - Horror movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7l8rlnMpCI
Oh boy...a user comment reminded me of this...looked for a clip...good to see The Roast covered this too...their reaction was mine too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu3jfi4z_Ro
Was wondering why there was music to the minister's singing (yes, he’s in federal government!)...thought uploaders were adding that, but The Roast mentions his a capella later rendition, which is what I think I heard on the news or whatever.
Hmm...since I mentioned Mental As Anything...I find this song amusing...would you like this guy as your boyfriend (I mean just listening to the lyrics)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSGtg26-TpU
re US politics...yeah, I do remember coming across the “legitimate rape” comment by one Republican...Teabag Party? Think that guy mocked science education or something...so you wonder if his views on female biology come from Christian ‘science’ or something.
In the news the other day, a state here wanted to make voting voluntary. It’s a conservative party proposal. There is an argument that this will favour conservative governments, as the poor and disenfranchised - if that’s the right word - won’t be arsed voting. On talk radio over here, think some mentioned the case of the UK and US...voting’s not compulsory there yet they have ‘left wing’ governments...either now or in the recent past. Also interesting was the argument that our system servers us well...our politics is more moderate or something...the argument was put that in the US the politics is more extreme because politicians have to get people motivated to vote, and they do that by discussing more extreme policies or whatnot. Have to say though, Mr. Speedo has been very negative over here. Revolutionary language often...”illegitimate” government blah, blah, blah. In another country that could be quite incendiary. I mean, who wants an illegitimate government? You have to overthrow those, right?
Also making the news recently, Australia has world first plain cigarette packaging laws in place now. Yesterday, I think, a minister was saying how people are commenting that the cigarettes don’t taste as good now, but she was saying that product is the same, it’s just the packaging which puts people off...oh, should have mentioned, there are some gross photos on the fags. Story today, I think, about one tobacco seller in one state possibly being in breach of the law by giving away something to cover up the fags gross pictures...in breach, possibly, of laws prohibiting freebies in this context. Australia has had graphic anti-smoking ads...
...I was actually looking for this ad and couldn’t find it initially...I did find some foreign language ads which were the same...so, our campaigns have obviously been influential around the world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZkYPWsQLZk
Lastly, recently explored a band I’d never heard before, The Stone Roses. Had heard of them though. Since you play the cello - right? - I thought maybe you might like the more low end sounds...this song sounds familiar to me from somewhere...has a cool bass lick...it was a bonus track on my CD, I think:
The Stone Roses - Fool’s gold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSD11dnphg0
Actually heard it on a commercial rock station I listen to. Really surp
(continued)
Lastly, recently explored a band I’d never heard before, The Stone Roses. Had heard of them though. Since you play the cello - right? - I thought maybe you might like the more low end sounds...this song sounds familiar to me from somewhere...has a cool bass lick...it was a bonus track on my CD, I think:
The Stone Roses - Fool’s gold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSD11dnphg0
Actually heard it on a commercial rock station I listen to. Really surprising. Old song. The station seems to be targeting old listeners of an indie/alt orienated station, perhaps.
Also liked this song from their debut:
The Stone Roses - This is the one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nmimtbhF_k
Another edit in: some interesting news stories either now or in the recent past:
Heard on the radio yesterday, I think, about a US case where a rape conviction was overturned on the basis of the woman who claimed the rape was not married...a case where she assumed the man was her boyfriend but wasn’t. Found the story online here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/imposter-wins-rape-ap peal-as-victim-was-unmarried-8438571.html
Perhaps the issue of rape could apply if the man was in fact her boyfriend? Think the radio report mentioned the woman being asleep at the time...not sure...so you’d think there was no consent...in which case it would seem arbitrary whether it was rape or not...depending on how the woman felt about it. Maybe I got confused about the details there...the story above doesn’t explicitly say that that was the case, so maybe it didn’t happen that way.
Another interesting story the other day...some US college footballers might get charged with raping an unconscious woman...they uploaded video of that etc. Interestingly, the hacker group Anonymous - I think they are called - got involved, demanding justice. The same group got similarly involved in something ridiculous involving Australian DJs who made a hoax call to a hospital and got private information about a now famous new royal from a nurse. The nurse subsequently killed herself. Found that stupid because a reasonable person wouldn’t think that such a hoax call would be likely to create such an outcome. Anonymous were threatening to ruin the DJs, which I just thought was absurd...their actions in the football case seems more justified. Just mentioned that alleged rape of the unconscious woman because in Australia - might just be in some states though, not sure - it is illegal to ‘sext’ pictures of underage women. Which is fair enough, until you get cases of teens doing just that...and if they do that, they get put on a list of registered sex offenders, which I do find absurd. Paedophiles get put on such lists. In the case of the teens, there’s no suggestion of rape, just explicity photos of underage people. I could understand adults getting in trouble for such stuff, but teens? Do you have laws like that in the US?
One last song...not sure if I’ve linked to this before, but since women’s issues are being discussed...what do you think of this pop song? It’s a great Australian pop song in my view but it does have some meaningful lyrics:
Jane Clifton - Girl on the wall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJla6sY_3jo
P.S. re tea, not sure if I said this, but I came across a newspaper article mentioning 3 kinds of tea...tried looking up this from Wiki, but you really need to use the right search term! Wiki says there are 4 kinds: black, green, white and oolong. Think I need to find me some white tea! Only one I haven't tried, I'm sure. Asked for white tea yesterday...they said they had...I asked if they meant with milk, and they said yes. Seems like a rare tea in any case...might have to look at a specialty tea store or something. Gosh, I'm such a dare devil!
P.P.S. re my "arbitrary" comment re that rape case impression...I mean sort of along the lines of disciplining children...how it's a criminal offense in many jurisdictions now...should it be? It depends on the circumstances, I suppose, but it seems to me that in some circumstances someone can cross someone else's lines but you keep it a matter between the parties, not bring in the law. Not sure I'm expressing this well...analogy...smacking a child although illegal in some places maybe shouldn't be a criminal matter, cf repeatedly beating a child with a stick. Both may be improper, but in only one would you think it should be a criminal matter. Maybe something like that could apply in a case of sex between two partners...as in lines may have crossed but you make that explicit instead of making it a criminal offence...depends on the circumstances...like the husband in Breaking Bad, I think there might be a "correct formulation" of this idea which I am not quite creating.
P.S. in case I forgot to mention it last time, that Status Quo re-do song which I linked to did get played in full by at least one radio station...I heard it on a classic hits station...hate when they blur music and ads like that...maybe a fan could be listening to a 3 minute ad and wondering why it seems different to how they remember it!
Word count: 4,097 (sorry!)
You can't create a post without a body
WARNING- My apologies for the absurd length of this post. The one re rape and sext is long enough to be it’s own topic, and the one on trolls hit essay length. Both are at the end (3rd reply post). Skimming unless really, really interested is highly recommended.
Re “I used to think that hurricanes were bigger than cyclones”- It sadly took me about four reads to make sense of this sentence. I know that worldwide hurricane, cyclone, and typhoon are all the same thing, just originate in different areas. In the US, however, cyclone is a synonym for twister/tornado, and just kept thinking ‘how can you compare the sizes of a tornado and a hurricane.’ Then the dumb American moment passed, kept reading the paragraph, and felt even more of an idiot. Lesson learned: always finish the paragraph when confused.
Supposedly cyclones/typhoons coming out of the Pacific tend to be larger than the hurricanes over here. Most likely because they have more water to draw from.
Re earthquake- we live, guessing, about 350 mi from a fault zone, so every now and then we feel one. Remember we had drills when I was grade school up here and we had to squeeze under our desks, which is fine if you’re small, but when you’re a tall person you’re constantly scrapping your back against the underside of the desk. Always hated those drills.
Re gun issues in the US- this is a big mess, that I don’t really see being resolved to anything truly different from before the Newtown shooting. Right after the shooting happened everyone was pushing for something to be done, and there are still some news programs that tend to lean more towards editorials that still push the story from time to time, but overall gun issues are starting to fade from the news. It’s like the guy that did the shooting reportedly had mental health issues, and for a week or two after the shooting people were pushing for mental health reform – make it more accessible and make it less of a social stigma – but that has since silenced with nothing being done. Read one story today where Republicans are now blaming violent video games, again, as to why there are so many gun violence problems in America. Personally I find violent video games therapeutic and a fantastic outlet for aggression – even if I do tend to suck at them.
As a general response, people keep saying we need more gun control in the US, but because of the 2nd Amendment (people have the right to keep and bare arms) people are squabbling about where the right line is. Very few people are for the European idea of getting guns completely off the street. The most common statements I’ve heard have been to make assault rifles, large caliber magazines, and one other item that escapes me (semi-auto rifles maybe) harder to obtain or make illegal to own, while hand guns and smaller magazines are still okay to own. I know Obama pulled some executive maneuver and signed something that had some kind of limiting provisions on certain kinds of guns, but there was a big backlash about over stepping his bounds, and heard some sheriffs saying they would never enforce it. Then we have basically the tea party crackpot base that is whining about the government taking away their rights to own any guns (haven’t heard ANY politician talking about that).
Gun buybacks have been going on for years, but they just don’t get a lot of attention usually. Didn’t hear anything about the coupons, so not quite sure what that is about. To the best of my knowledge people were getting money. Maybe the coupons were happening in areas where the govs couldn’t afford to pay cash.
Re armed police in schools- the only people outraged by this statement in the US must be in really tiny school districts, their kids go to a private school, or have had their heads stuck in the sand. Armed police have been in US public schools for years. The school district I attended has had an on duty, armed sheriff deputy or police officer in every middle and high school for I don’t know how long, and they have since been added to the elementary schools at some point, and the district is considered a decent to good district. I started middle school (grades 6-8) in autumn 1999 and we had a deputy at the school from day one, and I know they were there before that. Not completely positive, but I think that there are some districts that are in real problem areas that have more than one police/sheriff on duty because of the sheer number of problems in the schools and neighborhoods. Think the original reason for putting cops in schools had to do with the war of drugs and gangs, but not positive. Realistically, they are there to stay for the foreseeable future.
Re education- reminds me of report saw awhile ago and kept forgetting to mention here. There is an online site now called Khan Academy. This started out as some guy doing vids for his class or something to assist them in understanding concepts in, was either math or econ. Then he started getting more views from non students and comments about how much his vids helped other kids get the subject. Has since grown into a website with several different people involved and many different subjects and test preps to help kids learn. There are some schools now that are directing their students there for more help and as another tool for the kids to try to understand the concepts being taught. Think heard there was a beta movement where in some cases the kids only took lessons through the Khan Academy site, it reported back to the teachers how the kids were doing, and guess the teacher could step in if needed, but sounded like the teacher was just in the room because legally some body has to be in the room with the students. If it works I guess it could be a good thing, but part of me just doesn’t feel right about it.
Link for news story
http://tinyurl.com/8z43v3m
Here is the link for the Khan Academy site
https://www.khanacademy.org/
re dumb ways to die- the internet is a wondrous thing that people from all over can discover random crap from anywhere else in the world. There was a song from South Korea, “Gangnam Style”, that actually made it on to the top chart radio stations over here. You can’t tell me someone didn’t find that on the internet originally. Have heard of the Darwin awards. Bookstore has the latest copy on clearance, so guess the new version is getting ready to come out. Flipped through out of curiosity and was a story that stood out of a guy having “relations” with a glass flower vase because his girlfriend had turned him down earlier in the evening. While he was having said relations the vase broke and he wound up in the ER with several nasty lacerations to his genitals. If only he had used the tried and true hand method. Imagine by the time he could get it up again he probably had one of the worst cases of blue balls in history.
Re idiot drivers- these stories always resurface over here when people start pushing hard the no texting while driving campaigns. While said campaigns are always kind of active, every now and again they get more attention and the news will do a distracted driving piece. Always manage to catch people on camera doing any of the following while driving: talking on cell, texting, reading something i.e. e-mail, book, paper, etc., applying make-up, looking for something in the car that takes their eyes off the road for more than a second or two, turned around yelling at kids in backseat, etc. When I was in high school one girl told me how on a recent road trip she had the car on cruise control and was applying polish to her toe nails while driving.
Re tea- knew about black, green, and white teas, but didn’t realize oolong was its own kind of tea. Most of the places I see white tea are in bottled drinks, like Lipton has a white iced tea that they sell in like 20 oz. bottles at convenience stores. Just recently started seeing white tea that you can buy loose or in bags to make at home. Personally, I mainly drink Bigelow Earl Grey. Have some other loose leaf brands that I’m working through, but can only drink one cup of those every couple of days or something in it makes me feel sick. There is one I really like called Aged Earl Grey by a company called Numi that has a bit of a lighter taste than regular Earl Grey. Also by Numi they have a Decaf Vanilla tea that I was really happy to find. Had been looking for a Decaf tea, and the Earl Grey ones I had tried just didn’t taste right. There was one tea that I tried about two years ago now that I think was a Scottish bled of some kind that has been my favourite of any kind I’ve tried, but I haven’t been able to find it since. English Breakfast is just kind of there to me. I’ll drink it if that is what is available, but not a preference. Don’t think I could do the 3 teaspoons of maple syrup in my tea – sounds too sweet. I normally just have a teaspoon of sugar per cup.
Re water- I think it depends on where you are in the US as to what you’re tap water tastes like. Certain areas draw there water more from springs, and that usually tastes better. Most places the tap water is water that has come out of rivers that has been filtered and processed until it is declared safe to drink, and I think a lot of the times the chemicals they use in the filtration process are what gives it such a bad taste. I think I’ve just been spoiled with the bottled spring water I drink because it has the slightest sweet hint to it in comparison to the tap water.
Re Pascal’s wager- if you are talking about going into a church or whatever house of worship and listening someone tell you what you’re supposed to believe, then yes I consider it a burden. If there was something that I could really get behind and agree with all the tenants of the faith, I might be okay with it, but haven’t come anywhere close to finding one of those. My personal belief is that you should strive to be a decent person, which I know many religions push for, but I just don’t understand why people feel they need the justification of the religion to do so. There are the people whose first response is ‘oh it is the right thing to do’ and then when you push it becomes because that is what X faith says, and I just don’t get why it has to go into because X faith says. Why isn’t it enough for people to just be a decent person without needing that backing of someone else saying they should be.
Re Gruen planet colour blind ad- exactly. The kids skin tone was almost the same, but one kid was I think Chinese and the other Malaysian, so the ad was really talking about ethnic differences despite using the term colour blind.
Re BluRay- In researching BR players I came across the Oppo name, but they cost way more than I wanted to spend for one. There was one other company that was supposedly good, but again way out of my price range. Also learned that some players had to have hardware changes and couldn’t just be hacked into being regionless. Found a site that sold converted players and was able to pick up a Toshiba unit for about $165 that will play DVD or BR from any region. Happy surprise when it showed up that it was wifi enabled as well – according to the site and all reviews I had seen supposedly only had an Ethernet connection. Just got it a couple days ago and just checked to see if the dvds and Region A bluray works. Had to order another region BR because hadn’t been buying any since didn’t have the player, and that disc should get here within a day or two so I can make sure the BR region-free aspect works. Ordered the second series of Sherlock, and the sad thing is that it was cheaper by about half to order the BR region B discs than it would be to get the Region 1 DVD.
Re MyFace- my heart bleeds for the sister who just wants a little bit of privacy and can’t get it because her brother is a celebrity. Who felt wronged because someone re-posted a pic of her and friends without permission. Yeah right. Too bad this wasn’t a lesson for facebook in making privacy setting really manageable instead of being a b*tch to deal with. I’ve all but abandoned my facebook acct because of the lack of privacy and trying to stay on top of who can see what. Played a couple of rounds of Star Wars Angry Birds one day, and the next my mom was saying how the progress had posted publically. I guess with games the de facto consent is now to post openly, so had to go in and fix it, but stunts like that just drive me further and further from facebook, and am seeing less and less point to it all the time. Saw a story the other day, can’t remember where, saying that social media was just making everyone depressed and envious of what other people had, i.e. if a friends posted about some big achievement they had reached, people found that they were more envious of that person than happy for them and felt that they needed to come up with something to post that made them sound better than that person, which in turn made the original person need to out do person B and so on.
As for digital etiquette, what internet is she on? While there may be some etiquette in a formal environ, the rest of the net is a free or all, especially when it comes to celebrities or their families. Not to mention there would probably never be anything viral if everyone asked someone if they could repost it. Zuckerberg clearly shows how out of touch with internet reality she is though in two ways: 1) using the word etiquette and applying it to an online setting. If you read around a bit it is obvious not much is going on. 2) implying that human decency transfers to the internet. In many ways it seems like the internet is just a big news agency and whoever can deliver what the people want is going to be the man of the hour and it doesn’t matter who they cut down to get the story.
Internet privacy really is quite simple, though. If you want it to stay private, don’t post it to ANY social media. Can’t remember if you’ve said or not, but do you bother with any of the social media junk? Just curious about your thoughts on the different set ups and if you think there is any real benefit to them.
Re Mr. Speedo- he doesn’t have his head on straight. If you’re going on national(?) tv to argue a point based statements in a document, why wouldn’t you make sure you had read that document? Politicians. Had the interview running as was writing and it got up to 6:38ish and the topic has changed to asylum seekers and Abbott starts talking about illegals or whatnot and tries to use America as an example of where people showing up without documentation, visas, or passports would be treated as illegals. I take it Mr. Abbott has not heard of all the people coming up from Latin America that come in to the country, get settled, and without all of this documentation wind up on Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, or about the Dream Act which allows their children (whether they were born here or not but due to how their parents got here aren’t actually legal citizens or residents of any state) to pay cheaper in-state tuition for colleges. And depending on what work they get and how they’re paid, they don’t have to pay the income taxes that everyone else does.
Re 50 shades- It isn’t well written. I’ve come across fanfic that is much better written than the 50 Shade trilogy, but I’ve come across other published works that are worse than a lot of fic I’ve read over the years. Didn’t realize 50 shades started out as a self-published e-book. Makes more sense now how it started, as I would imagine trying to sell that to a publishing office would have been nearly impossible to begin with. I’ve been looking at some of the e-published stuff on amazon and barnes & noble (think the only real mega bookstore seller left over here) and I can’t really blame people for trying to publish there. There is a lot larger variety of what is published on either of those sites than I think ever could be found in a bookstore, even before they started narrowing down their in store inventories. Any more over here it seems that unless it is a classic, bookstores don’t really keep anything on their shelves that is older than about 3 years, and in the music department it has become all but impossible to find anything that is not current. You go online and you can find older books to order, or if you’re looking for something new you aren’t restricted to the trends and same old same old that the big publishing companies are pushing. Have also noticed a bunch of very, very short stories on there, like under 20 pages short, and people are buying them because they’re getting reviewed. I still mourn how e-readers are growing, but I think there is money to be made there for anyone with a computer and the patience to write a story out in the e-reader formats. Don’t know if it would be enough to support a person, but could probably bring in some pocket money if you could establish yourself with a following.
Re heat- hope you have gotten some relief from that heat. I’m currently hibernating because it is approx. -6 C with a sustained wind chill of around -17 C, and that’s the high! This weekend and next week it is supposed to get up in the teens C, hopefully the forecast isn’t changed at the last minute. We’re having one of those winters where it is too cold to even think about going outside one day and the next it feels like spring.
Re shopping mall traps- if you can’t find what you’re looking for and really need it you’re going to go exploring for it, because even the employees don’t know where everything has been moved to. Rational being that you will see something else you forgot you needed while trudging all over trying to find it. Personally I just get ticked when this happens and just want out of the store faster. Have heard that over all women are browsing shoppers where as men just go to what they need. Hate the person that put the candy by the checkouts. When I was younger the answer was usually no – and I raised where no meant no and bawling or throwing a fit in a store just got you spanked – and now that I’m older I hate listening to all the damn crying and parents that just ignore the little monsters.
What the heck is a Freddo Frog?
Re death metal Russian pizza place- maybe he was just looking to get in on a market everyone else was ignoring? Cater to them and hope for a loyal base maybe?
Re styled bohemian- Sometimes a store owner wants to make positive they have a setting 100% right to attract who they want to attract and may not follow that idea of things themselves, so it is better to pay someone to make sure you have that look/feel and get those people in instead of floundering about and possibly loose your business because it took so long for you to get established.
Re timeless zones in stores – that is my understanding of it. Sad thing is the bookstores I shop in usually have one or two walls of windows and I still manage to loose a minimum of half an hour without even trying. (The one place where I do browse and tend to check out most aisles.) Still interested in the outdoor mall phenomena where every store has windows in it and you are remind of the time every time you leave a store.
Re Status Quo- there are probably more than one of their songs that gets played here, but that is the one I recognize, and it was helped in popularity by being a quasi theme song to a kid movie called Beethoven. Was about a St. Bernard and his family, but if you take the lyric literally, ‘roll over Beethoven’ makes a lot of sense for a kid’s movie about a dog.
Re Skyhooks- can’t say that I recognize the song. It sounds like something that channels would use pieces of in promos. Could see some channels using it for a horror movie marathon promo.
Re singing politician- suppose there are worse things to be known for in politics than your bad singing. Takes a lot of something to be that bad and do it twice and one day. Makes me wonder if he was a distraction of some kind. Look at what this guy is doing over there while we do something the public isn’t going to like over here and you’ll only hear about it later because you were focused on that.
Re If You Leave Me- ick, clingy stalker. That being said I do find the vid entertaining.
Just by the by, do you know of any internet sites to help track down songs by lyrics, especially songs that aren’t very well known?
Re US politics- None of the Repubs that were on a ticket talking about “legitimate rape” and got their biology lessons from ancient times were officially in with the tea party. They are about as conservative as you can find, but people fully endorsed by the Tea Party end can’t cut it right now, thank god. In the two election cycles prior to this 2012 one they mad enough fools out of themselves where it is difficult to get enough of the vote, and since the Repubs were fighting to hang on to seats and take over the other half of Congress they knew official Tea Party people weren’t going to win right now. That being said I’m sure some of the candidates were better friends with the Tea Party people behind the scenes than they let on. Just glad that the Repubs lost ground this time around, not that I think it opened their eyes to anything they are doing wrong, but hopefully in the next election we don’t go backwards.
Re voting- Kind of shocked to hear of a democracy where voting is mandatory. To the best of my knowledge voting in the US has never been compulsory, even when it was just the white, land owning, males that were the only ones who could vote. In the US we never have 100% voter turn out; think about 50% is about average any more. Think it was around the highest in ’04 with like 64%. Last election there were real problems at some polls where people were in line for over 8 hours waiting to vote, and, in a move that only makes sense in politics, there are politicians in some of the real problem areas pushing to reduce the number of places people can go to vote and the number of hours the polls are open to vote. Most of these are Repubs who narrowly won re-election and/or where the district elected Repubs at the local level and Democrat at the upper levels. Also pushing for more restrictions on early voting and when people are allowed to do that.
By big thing with voting, though, is I want people to actually know who they are voting for and not just go, ‘oh s/he’s a Republican/Democrat/etc so I’ll vote for them’ and then later down the line they say ‘I didn’t realize that about so and so’ or ‘it is just the media attacking him/her’ when there are voting records and other records to prove that is what the person actually believes. We get so many people that seem to just eat up whatever their told about a politician and never do any checking. At the very least look at what the politician has voted for in the past, and if that isn’t available there is usually something to find regarding the person’s actions vs what they feed you. Hell, I tend to vote 3rd party, and trying to find info on those candidates can be rather interesting, but you can find it.
Re illegitimate government- would depend on who said it, who it was said to, and if the media ran with it as to how incendiary it would be. There are some groups in the US right now that don’t think the gov we have is illegitimate for one reason or another. And right now a Repub could probably go make a comment like this to his supporters behind closed doors and they’d agree. If the comment got out the left would get up in arms about it for a while and then things would go on as normal.
While technically an illegitimate gov is supposed to be overthrown, they managed to get power some how, in a democracy that supposedly would be the people’s doing. If it could be proven that the politicians of this hypothetical illegitimate gov were illegitimate you would still have to amass enough people to overthrow them, most likely physically to a certain extent, and it can be difficult to get enough people to do that. Plus, if the illegitimate gov wins the fight, the ones trying to over throw them would be considered traitors and who knows what would happen to them from there.
Re cigarettes- there is currently a two spear fight going on in the US against smokers. The first is an organization called Truth that seems to be aimed primarily at pre-teens and teens about not starting. They’ve gone through a few different types of ads.
Their website
www.thetruth.com
Not sure if this is one of their internet ones, but I think it is part of theirs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSJMRvaGKNg
Another from a couple years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hThkvQmtDqU
One of their early ones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4xmFcrJexk
One from last year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-KZlG9kvbg
re The Stone Roses – Fools Gold- it’s a very long song. Nice background music and would probably grow on me the more I listen to it.
-This Is The One- think I like this one better, but could also stand to be a little shorter I think. Gets a bit repetitive.
Re Aussie DJ hoax- agree that Anonymous should not have gotten involved. The backlash that the DJs faced was way overboard for what they did, and like you said no one could have foreseen that outcome.
Re California rape case- that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, but as mentioned in the story the law that the guy used to get the conviction overturned dates from the 1870s. Hopefully this case will be enough for someone to go in and get that loophole off the books. I found the following article that goes into the story more than the one you linked.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/julio-morales-rape-conviction -overturned-1872-law_n_2410310.html
From what I’ve gathered from the two articles, it sounds like the woman was initially sleeping when the man started touching, kissing, etc, but she woke up before penetration happened. My guess is the defense is arguing de facto consent because she was responding to his “kisses and caresses”. Because of the archaic law still on the books (which there are WAY too many of in this country) they might be able to get the guy on some kind of sexual assault charge since she would not have welcomed his attentions if she knew he wasn’t her boyfriend, but it depends on how California law is written if they can get the rape charge prosecute again. I would be concerned about releasing this guy period, though; if he thinks it is okay to go up to a sleeping woman he is not in a relationship with and start foreplay and sex. It says to me that he would do it to someone else, especially if he had no problem in this case pretending to be someone he wasn’t, though it doesn’t say what actions took place after the victim ID who she was sleeping with. Found another article that says she was asleep when she was penetrated, and in the new case if they can prove that, then the rape ruling sticks. In same article it says that the victim says she screamed and pushed him away. From what I’ve read, it sounds like this guy deserved to be locked up and probably deserves a longer prison sentence than what he had.
If it had been her boyfriend the girl had woken up to, it sounds like it might not have been an issue for her. The reason they had abstained that night before was due to the lack of a condemn, so if she woke up to him going at it, even without the condemn, I doubt she would have called it rape, just maybe pissed off at the guy for risking it.
One of the problems in prosecuting rape crimes are some of these archaic laws that are still on the books, and because of the attitudes towards women and rape when they were enacted the perp can get away with it. In some cases, the courts side with the victim and prosecute the criminal because they understand that the law is outdated and doesn’t stand in modern society. (I know there is a law term for that scenario, but can’t think of what it is called right now.)
Re sexting pics- In the US it is illegal for anyone to possess, photograph, send, receive, produce, etc. photos, videos, drawings, etc. of an underage person engaging in any sort of sexual activity or sexually provocative poses that show “the genitals or the pubic area.” (That is a summation of the some of the federal law code, and while I don’t see it included anywhere on the page I’m reading, I would imagine that if a female had started to develop breasts and just one or both were shown it would still count as illegal.) At the federal level a minor is anyone under the age of 18, but at some of the lower levels (state, county, city, etc.) the age is different; some it is younger (the state I’m in it is 17) and in some places it goes up to 21.
All that being said, it is illegal for a teen to have a sexual pic or another teen, even if the pic was taken with full consent. These photos are passed between teens I think more often that a lot of people would like to admit, but when someone is caught with it I think it is fairly rare for it to be prosecuted. The issue tends to arise I think more when a couple has a bad break up, one has explicit material of the other and to get back at the other they spread it around, sending it to friends, posting it to social media sites, etc. Once it hits that level it tends to depend on the people involved and if the offended party tries to get the other person charged with a crime, it can depend on the prosecutors, judges and whether they think they can get a jury to convict. Depending on the adults that get involved, there may be the decision not to prosecute under the child porn laws because of the mental age of those involved and it becomes the offended party should have done it in the first place if they didn’t want the photo or whatever to get out. That would most likely be a case where both parties were older teens and close to the same age. If you get a case where the victim teen is younger, let’s say 13 for the sake of argument, and the other 16, I think the case would more likely be prosecuted under child porn laws and if they did engage in any sexual acts the 16 year old is probably also looking at statutory rape charges, even if the sex was consensual. I do remember maybe a year or two ago there was a case where some older minor teens were charged under the child porn laws for photos on their phones, but I don’t remember the details of the case.
We also have the sex offender lists, and if the teen is convicted under the child porn laws they are also put on that list. Have heard in some cases where a teen is accused, charged, or convicted of another crime, and during that investigation it comes to light that sex has happened between this teen and another underaged person, even when both parties are consenting, teen 1 will be put on the sex offender lists. I agree with you that teens should not go on that list if they are engaging in what would be recognized as completely consensual between two adults. It comes back to the issue that adults don’t want to accept that teens are in fact capable of making these decisions, they are making these decisions daily, and today’s teens are more knowledgeable about sex than past generations. I know psychologists like to argue that the developing teen brain can’t fully comprehend or some similar rot all the ramifications that engaging in sex entails, but I really think that is crap. Unless you can prove manipulation of some kind by the other party, a teen knows enough that their consent should be recognized.
Re Girl on the Wall- nice little pop song. It is sad to think that this is from 1984 and it seems like all of the same self-image problems she mentions are still so prevalent.
Re trolls- I think the Aussie media has cast a wider net as to what constitutes a troll than over here, or the US media has just gotten away from using the term. When you hear about stories where someone was harassed until they killed themselves or funeral hecklers the media usually uses the term cyber bullying. Might have come across it every now and again on a story posted on like Yahoo or a similar site, but stories from the mainstream I don’t remember hearing or seeing it in.
From a personal standpoint, I don’t consider the people who targetely harass and bully others online trolls. I consider there to be two categories of these people. The first consists of people who personally know the person that they are harassing or bullying online, i.e. kids who know another kid at school and the mean, nasty, bully-type comments on the kid’s facebook and twitter or text the comments. This is a category where I think it would at the same time be easier and more difficult to deal with. On the one hand knowing who your tormentors are in person should make it easier to get help from parents, friends, etc., and if you know who your enemy is at least you have a starting point. On the other hand, a lot of these kids who are targeted feel cut off to a certain extent for whatever reason, and sometimes even when they reach out n one listens. There are also cases where the people that could have found a way to help just throw up their hands and say there is nothing we can do because the tormentors have not been caught in the act or because it is online. (While I’m sure this probably happens to some adults as well, all the cases I hear about involve kids so for the sake of argument right now I’m approaching it from that angle.)
The second category is the people who attack people they don’t know online anonymously. Case in point the DieCharlotte hashtag talked about at the beginning of the MediaWatch story. These are people that I have an almost impossible time wrapping my head around their makeup, and am convinced that each one of them is a sociopath in varying degrees. To constantly harass someone you don’t know with threats against them, telling them the world is better off without them, and/or some form or ‘please go commit suicide’ is bad enough, but it goes to another extreme when it is all done anonymously. To have nothing better to do with your time, even if it’s just watching trashy TV programs, than actively trying to get someone to commit self harm or suicide, in my personal opinion, shows that there is something dangerously wrong with these individuals. And realistically, even if one of these people claim it is all in good fun, it’s just a supposed joke and they don’t really mean it, especially now that hard evidence exists that people do take these comments literally in some cases, anyone participating in such activities needs to be held accountable in some way. Will that happen? No, and I’m well aware of that, but I say the best way to see a person’s true self is easily ascertained by seeing how they act online where they can all but guarantee their anonymity. And if you have someone that is wiling to act like that in the first place, and is continuously getting away with it, they can easily become bolder in their activities and it would not surprise me is you started to act out in real life, finding ways to push limits a little at a time until they found the threshold of what they can get away with. Fear of discovery by people they know in real life would most likely also help keep these people in check to a certain degree, but that isn’t a guarantee.
I’m sure all these people get a rush of power out of harassing (I find this too light of a word for what a lot of these people do, but not sure what else to call it) others, and so I can understand it to a point, but the funeral/memorial hecklers I don’t understand at all. Maybe that too is a power thing – making people that are grieving feel even worse – but at the same time I feel like there is something more psychologically to it; just don’t know what. The academic on the Insight story you linked said it is about getting amusement, similar to getting amusement from a tv character; not sure that goes deep enough into it. One of the self proclaimed trolls, Weev, tries to equate online, anonymous harassment of the memorial sites to what Westborough Baptist does at funerals in real life, and God help me I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I have the smidgen more respect for WB because at least they are putting themselves out there. I think their beliefs are wrong, I think what they do is despicable, I don’t agree that what they do should be protected under the free speech amendment, but you can see their faces and they go out there as themselves. They do not hide behind pseudonyms or some kind of avatar, and they are standing for a belief.
This brings me to what makes up my definition of an online troll. The first one is anonymity. While some may do their online trolling with a real name, it is a miniscule percent. They hide behind avatars and false names, and if they are dedicated they will have more than one avatar and name for the sites they like to haunt. Secondly, they attack groups (fan groups, political groups, or a discussion forum like IMDB) over individuals, initially and usually. In some cases if a particular person from a group starts attacking the troll or calling the troll out as a troll the name calling will start, but it stays within what I would consider more of a “playground” insults, i.e. ‘you’re stupid’, ‘no you are’, ‘no you’. And in such case ugly, fat, etc. may get thrown in, but they aren’t the targeted meant to drive the person’s self-esteem down until something bad happens, and the insults are kept within one site and the troll does not follow the user onto different sites and attack the person there. With celebrities this is a bit more flexible. As long as the troll is engaging fans (ex. ‘Actress X is ugly) I still see it as trolling, but when it becomes directed at the celebrity is when it changes into one of the worse categories. Thirdly, they are just trying to stir things up just because they like making other people annoyed and/or angry. The self proclaimed trolls from the Insight thing claim they have purpose and are trying to get dialogues started, but I have never seen a real dialogue occur because a troll came on a website and started their BS. Fourth, they either don’t have a real argument, don’t present an argument at all, or it is very flimsy. Plainly put they have no backing to their comment and cannot truly debate what they think with someone. This goes back to supposedly wanting to start a dialogue, but I have never actually seen anything like that happen. I feel like if you can make an actual argument and explain it reasonably, what is the point of throwing out the juvenile comments to start with. It just makes you seem stupid and infantile and if a person was actually looking to engage in a dialogue, why would they want such a person to be a part of it? Trolls are also looking for fights – maybe that is what they consider a dialogue – but it has to be a fight where they can come away feeling superior. This is done through either deliberately throwing out comments with the sole intent of stirring people up or trying to make someone look stupid, i.e. in the Insight bit one guy mentioned being on a forum for building a computer help and the way he chose to expose how one member was an @$$hole was to pretend to be an idiot about what he was doing and getting the guy to act more and more like an @$$.
The described @$$ in the above scenario sounds like what I would call an inside troll. These are people that may like the show, music, broad ideas, etc of the group they are interacting with, but they have no respect for the opinions of others in the group. They think that if you don’t agree with their ideas you are wrong and tend to make snide, rude, and/or sarcastic replies to a post of the dissenting person. This tends to be bullying in some cases, but doesn’t cross into harassing the dissenter on other sites. It is more about silencing them on that particular site or getting him/her to fall in line. Sometimes this can be a clique that manages to gain control of a forum in that they tend to push out all other simply by the fact that people get bored that no real discussion can take place. This lack of respect for others opinions is also seen in regular trolls, you just normally don’t have to worry about them taking over an entire forum; back to an earlier point they don’t have points to back up why they think you’re wrong, stupid, etc., they’re just stirring up crap.
If the proclaimed trolls on Insight were being honest about their activities, and I would have to see them in action to say one way or the other for sure, but several don’t sound like they’d fit my definition of a troll. They sound like they have certain opinions and it would depend on how they deliver those opinions as to whether I’d call them a troll. Masood says what he is doing is just speaking his mind, and as long as it is done in a respectful way I just see it as a man exercising his born right to have an opinion on something. Another thing is one tried to say that trolling had been going on forever in human history, it is just a new format with the net, and I disagree. In the past, people had to bodily put themselves out there, and even if insults or whatever were not traded face to face and someone hid behind a telephone or a mailed letter, there were ways to trace it back that are much easier than trying to track down the real person behind internet trolling.
Word Count: 7640
Again sorry about the length.
You, my dear, are like Lance Armstrong. On steroids. Wait a second!
Okay, I’ll reply to this piecemeal, and hope to God that you don’t edit stuff in the meantime!
re you thinking me dumb for comparing sizes of cyclones and hurricanes...odd that the US would use an existing word (cyclone) as a synonym for tornadoes. I’m no meteorologist but. Think I’ve mentioned here in the past use fhe word “mini twister” in Australia...to which I think “Is is it a tornado or isn’t it?”. Thought that they would be more like really bad gales, but I have seen news footage of some of these and you do see the funnel, so it looks like an actual tornado...do you get “mini tornadoes” in the US? Or is that just some bs Australian term?
Speaking of lingo confusion...you know about the one where Australians might say something like “I’ll just put my thongs on”? Where that wouldn’t mean what you think it means! I’ve also thought about our emergency number...000. We say “Triple o” (triple oh). So, we use a letter of the alphabet to denote a number. Makes me wonder if that is a problem. Caught up on an ep of Family Guy I DVRd months ago...very funny bit with the dad trying to get his Mexican or whatever maid or cleaner or whatever to write down a phone number. Had me in hysterics...he was telling her “No, I’m not giving you the quantity of the numbers, I’m telling you the actual number”. That would be where he gave repeating numbers, which threw the woman. Here we’ll use phrases like “double one four oh” for 1140, say. That would not be an American thing, right? Oh yeah, remembered the other Brit/US lingo difference...a schoolgirl asking her schoolboy peer “Can I borrow your rubber?” would mean something touchy in the US!
Anyway, re you saying you thought cyclones bigger than hurricanes, like I said, when a big cyclone hit here, there was some comparisons between big cyclones and hurricanes in the US...I think maybe Katrina or whatever had a bigger diameter or whatever, but they were comparable...not exactly precise info here, but. I associate Queenslanders with the practice of ending sentences with a conjunction (“but”). Had way too much time on my hand when I thought of an amusing thing a Queenslander might say “Went to a brothel. It was raining. It was good but”. Never mind. You get Americans end sentences with a but? Was interested to learn that accents which may have negative connotations in their own nation/country, can be viewed positively in other countries. E.g. a Glaswegian accent would work well in the US, say, for telemarketing or whatever. But in the UK, they might suspect you are a criminal or ‘common’....I mean snobby English people...Glasgow is a working class kind of city in Scotland, I think. Back to cyclones...not sure I buy your view that cyclones here are bigger than hurricanes in the US because they have more water to draw from. I’m not an oceanographer or anything, but if there is a difference in size between the Pacific ocean and the Atlantic ocean, I wouldn’t think that that would overly influence swirly winds.
re you being 350 miles from a fault line...would have thought that too far away to need drills. Not that I’d know though. Interesting that Queensland has had mega flooding over here...again. In the news the other day it was mentioned that decades ago people built their houses on stilts, so the flood waters just rushed under their houses. Now houses get destroyed or washed away. No sense of historical wisdom in that case...if people/councils keep building houses as are now, that would just be monumentally stupid. People complaining also about insurance companies not insuring them now...but they live in a flood plain!
re gun reforms...I suppose that will be a strategy by the gun lobby...just hope that the talk dies out and people forget about it...until the next massacre...repeat ad infinitum. You mention you play violent video games...which ones? I’m currently playing XCOM: Enemy unknown. Played it a few times and still playing it...unusual for me. It’s a turn based strategy/RPG shooter. I learned that there is a word for how I play games...”scum saver”. Feel that that game especially warrants it. But now I’m playing a no save mode of the game...on Easy though...curious to see if that plays like Normal to me, because Normal felt like Hard! Someone recommended Valkyria Chronicles as something kinda/sorta like it...so I ordered it. Game is years old though. Both games have combat missions but not sure if VC has non-combat strategy side to it too. Maybe it’s because I usually scum save (i.e. constantly save before outcomes can branch and reload when I don’t like an outcome) that I haven’t felt the attachment to my soldiers in XCOM which I often hear mentioned. When scum saving no one dies or gets seriously wounded.
Back to guns...have heard about the ‘loophole’ which means that private sales require no ID or background checks to make a purchase...or something like that. No doubt an NRA initiative. Did hear the head, I think, say that such measures won’t stop criminals getting guns or maybe crazy people too. Even if that’s true, why make it easy for them? Are gun deaths are down in any case...and criminals no doubt find it harder to get guns. Actually, I’m pretty sure such laws WOULD stop criminals in the US...there’s bound to be some idiots who have criminal records but try anyway to get a gun. Like the ones who get caught when they are on the run due to getting a letter or phone call saying that they have won money or something...i.e. the police fool them into handing themselves in! Also heard something about gun restrictions in the wake of Reagan’s assassination attempt expiring...so, the NRA obviously managed to influence the process enough to have a time limit on the laws...which are laws don’t have, in this case.
re armed guards (police?) in schools and only some people outraged by this...not sure what you are saying there...that only a minority don’t want this? Since you’ve had this experience, do you find it natural? Just thinking that maybe a student exchange person from Australia might find that odd or unsettling perhaps. You mention private schools...hmm...another lingo difference...in the UK they call their private schools public schools...not sure what that is about...sort of weazel words? “Yes, our schools ARE public. Anyone can enrol” (so long as you are rich). Anyway, granted that the US schooling system could be a different planet...I mean student violence be it gang related or whatever...that kind of stuff would really be unheard of here...beyond the pale.
re Khan academy...hopefully I’ll remember to bookmark that...could be useful. I just glanced at that first article you posted on it. Pretty sure that now higher education etc is easily accessible, perhaps for free...Open Learning type stuff. Not looked into it myself, but if I want to explore maths or something, looks like a site worth checking out. Long bow to draw here, but was listening to non-commercial talk radio here and the host interviewed some ‘academic’ about an Australian woman in gaol in Indonesia and how the Australian government was covering up blah, blah, blah. Oh, found a link...the guy sounded American, and it basically sounded like the host of the programme got suckered into interviewing the guy because of the extraordinary claims by the ‘academic’. The host has a legal background, so he’s quite sharp and doesn’t take any bs. One caller later said that the host should have let the audience make up their own mind by mentioning the website...here’s the longbow part...the net has loads of ‘educational’ sites like this! In case you’re interested (it’s a short interview), here’s the link:
http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2013/02/01/3681015.htm?site=melbourn e&program=melbourne_mornings
Anyway, just guessing that this guy just wants click bait...something to get the advertising revenue in. Briefly looked up his ‘organisation’ and couldn’t quickly find out its country of origin etc.
re Darwin awards and Ms. Vase...to lower the tone of the conversation here I did read a story in the tabloid news here of a guy who stuck his...vase...in a dog’s mouth. No doubt the dog took great umbrage at this and used its teeth. Since you mention the “tried and true” hand method...reminds me...the one thing I remember from reading Australian feminist Germaine Greer’s iconic text “The female eunuch” is her line about some men viewing the vagina as an extension of their hand. Read that donkey years ago. No idea why that particular image is the one that has remained with me! Oh...it occurred to me last night that I doubt it would be a Darwin Awards story if the vase guy lived...SPOILER ALERT....every person in those books dies. But I have never read those books...maybe they have a “near misses” section? re stupid car drivers...but...BOTH feet hanging outside of the driver’s side window? Just thinking that maybe you don’t see examples of people THIS stupid in the US. Hmm...your nail polish girl driver...hey, at least she had ONE foot on the pedal, right? Right? Completely different!
Anyway, you mention Gangnam Style around about that part of your post...he was big here too. I think he’s overtaken Justin Bieber’s “Baby” as the most watched You Tube...near a billion views, can you believe? Do remember reading beforehand some figure of content providers getting something like 70c or whatever for every 1,000 views or whatever. Would guess that Psi and Bieber or whoever must be getting at least a million for those. Australian singer Gotye’s massive hit “Somebody that I used to know” must dwarf the previously most popular Australian song You Tubes...think he’s up to around a ⅓ of a billion views on You Tube.
re Lipton tea in 20 oz bottles...how many barrels is that? When are you guys moving into the 20th century? We’ve had metric here for miles! re decaf tea...I didn’t think they had any caffeine in the past...but maybe have heard they have some...enough to warrant to decaffing it? I’m not sure what teaspoons of maple syrum equals re teaspoons of sugar, but I like my tea sweet...3 seems the sweet spot, so to speak. Reminded of that joke on the US movie which was called Flying High here (Airplane! in the US)...a stewardess asks a primary school girl how she likes her coffee, I think. the girl says “Black. Like my men”. Hmm...I wonder if the world is too PC to let that go through to the keeper now, or laugh at it. As a boy, I remember watching it with my dad...who got a big laugh out of that...I don’t remember if I did too...funniest movie ever for me in any case. re sweet water...good God man! Do Americans put sugar in their water too? Did hear that McDonald’s burger buns have sugar in them...not sure if that is common though. Think the US media covered the chain here calling themselves “Maccas” for Australia day...the polloi call it that. Hmm...which reminds me of reading a story about an ‘upmarket’ Mac restaurant...silver spoon service or whatever. Two words...lipstick. on. a. sow.
re religion...maybe I’d keep it on pragmatic grounds...e.g. if a homicidal maniac finds religion and it stops them from being a homicidal maniac, mission accomplished.
re Gruen ad...no anthropologist, but maybe Chinese and Malays are a different race? Of course, there is the view that race is only skin deep, but not sure that strictly speaking you have to have different skin colour to be a different race. But no idea, really...just guessing. Hmm...there was a story a few years ago about Genghis Khan being an ancestor to...what was it? 5% or 25% of the population? Some not insignificant number in any case.
re Blu Ray...you mention region 1 and region B...bit confusing. You mean region 2? Just looked at Wiki re regions in any case. It might be that the Toshiba that you brought was the Japanese brand I read about as being a good cheap alternative to the Oppo. From memory...wait...Hell yeah...found the article...maybe it is still useful to you re playing region free?
lhttp://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/hometech/break-down-bluray-borders- 20120926-26jvp.htm
It’s cool when you finally come out with a Google phrase which works! This worked for me: the age and oppo and region free.
The Wiki entry on regions mentioned NTSC v our PAL. You still have that? Think I mentioned that before...Never The Same Colour Twice. PAL is meant to be a superior system to the NTSC one. If I’ve seen NTSC, it seems garish for some reason...like Tom Savini’s make up for the zombies in Dawn of the dead!
re Zuckerbergs and MyFace...the float was in the news for all the wrong reasons...something about investors not being privvy to information that the company had and other instititutions. That’s why the share price plummeted soon after the launch. Think this is still subject to litigation. You see The Social Network? Thought it was a great movie...should have won Best Picture over The King’s Speech, imo.
re social websites...I’ve got a few accounts but don’t really use them. I was ‘following’ Stephen Fry, who is regarded as a wit, but a filter for only receiving his bon mots would have been useful. Bit of junk out of there. Also followed US comedian in Australia Arj Barker for a while, but mostly shop talk. In the West, I associate Twitter with celebs and whatever they are flogging at the time. Was surprised how profound it could be in the Middle East, say. Also briefly followed Hideo Kojima, the producer of the Metal Gear Solid games. He posts pictures of what he had for lunch! Barely use Twitter at all...slightly more than MySpace which I’ve gone years without using...but I did contact a muso maybe a couple of years ago...maybe musos are finally abandoning it now? Seems to have become uncool once Wupert bought it. Don’t really use FaceBook either...signed up because of some interesting sound programmer or whatnot on it (app?) but don’t think it ran well and I really don’t use that site. From memory the app was asking you to describe music which it played to you...or something...this was years ago. I’ve archived this info...this is where I heard it from...2009:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/computer-trai ned-to-describe-music/3153388
So, sounded interesting, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to use it...I think. That’s why I joined MyFace.
Back to your question...for the West, I think it would be just better if something like Twitter was a private forum for celebs to brown nose eachother. It gets a bit cliquey, I hear. On the one hand celebs people ‘worthy’ of their attention...other celebs, but on the other hand, they want to flog their products to the masses...so, a two tier system might work for that. I actually contacted a muso on MySpace, and they were unknown enough or something to get back to me...I did buy that artist’s album in any case, which I liked. Have emailed Australian musos in the past and got replies...not sure if actually contacted Alice Cooper as well. But MySpace and maybe Twitter seem like places where ‘ordinary’ people can rub shoulders with the ‘stars’.
re Mr. Speedo...he’s running the line that the Government is awful, with their climate change crap (he’s back peddling on that quote of his now) and new mining tax etc. So when a mining company releases some bad news (good news for him), he can just lay the blame at the government. It’s better when pesky journalists don’t mention the fact that the big miner explicitly blamed their problems on anything other than policies for carbon taxes or mining taxes. Maybe on the commercial networks he could get away with a blithe “The company is suffering because of the carbon tax talk and minig tax” or whatever.
re Mr. Speedo and asylum seekers...you sound like the kind of person that Mr. Speedo would be appealing to...he’s going to ‘fix’ this ‘illegal’ boat people problem. The US has the Tea Party and Australia had the One Nation party, formed after the party of Mr. Speedo deselected Pauline Hanson as a candidate...think she said stuff about aborigines or boat people or immigrants. For a while her party was pretty much a 3rd force in politics over here. When the conservatives adopted many of her ideas, her party’s influence faded. That’s pretty much where all the tough measures against ‘boat people’ comes from. Even the ‘Labor’ party is tough now...the issue has been politised. Interestingly, former conservative PM Malcolm Fraser is now more to the left of the supposedly left wing Labor party, as far as immigration is concerned. Hmm...seem to remember some news story about Fraser coming out of a US hotel sans pants or something...don’t really know what that was all about.
Anyway, there was a song which parodied Pauline Hanson (I think it uses samples of stuff she has said)...
Pauline Pantsdown - I don’t like it.
I like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SxFc37h6js
re Mexicans in the US...not sure if I mentioned this before, but saw a docu how the US purported to help Mexico with labour or something but then annexed the land. To be a black armband historian, maybe you can say that Mexicans are just taking ‘their’ country back? Anyway, both in the US and Australia, issues of immigration “illegal!” is very much a wedge policy...like I said, the Labor party here, to negate the wedge, now engage in some miserable treatment of ‘illegal immigrants’ in detention centres. Comedians have mocked how the mainland of Australia has been removed from the something or other...in the sense that beforehand, if ‘boat people’ landed on the mainland, they could claim asylum. Now they can’t. It is a complex issue though...I can see both sides, but I’m sure that for those who have legitimate concerns about this, others might just be driven by things like xenophobia. There was a tv docu series here which I think trended #1 on Twitter for a while “Go back to where you came from”, which put ordinary Australians in the shoes of boat people. When exposed to the realities, many softened their views but thought that the people they came into contact with might be ‘real’ refugees but others were no doubt ‘playing the system’. The 2nd series had celebrities and politicians etc put in the shoes of immigrants...most notably the conservative politician who famously lied (?) that he had a photo proving that boat people were throwing their babies overboard to get picked up by the patrol boat. From memory their boat was on fire, so they were trying to save their children. How many words does a picture tell?
re weather and your comment that:
“We’re having one of those winters where it is too cold to even think about going outside one day and the next it feels like spring.”
Apart from the temperature, that sounds like where I live...heard that a popular song is about where I live:
Crowded House - Four seasons in one day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9sem05RHnM
They’re a New Zealand/Australian act. Noticed some argument in the posts about what place the song is about...Australia or New Zealand? The 2nd top comment on the video has a saying which is where the song got its title from. Queensland, a state near the tropics, has the slogan “Beautiful one day, perfect the next”. Hmm...Crowded House have another weather related song...this is my fave of theirs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag8XcMG1EX4
I might have to get a compilation from these guys...maybe I underrate them too much.
Anyway, I complain when it’s cold here, but sheesh, -6 C just dwarfs what I complain about...for me, under 10 C is cold! Is that a three dog night for you? Btb, I heard that the band used that phrase and claimed it was Australian in origin...never heard of that myself!
Australia had the hottest day in its h
Australia had the hottest day in its history the other week...over 40 C. Sydney had its hottest day ever recently, nearly 46 C, I think. There was a place in central Australia, I think, which nearly hit 50 C, which is a record too, I think. 38 C is 100 F in your money. On 40 C days here it can be literally oven like...like when you open a hot oven and the air hits you, that’s what its like being out on the street...moving to the beat. I don’t like it. Weather up and down here so far...no bad heatwaves like in previous years. It’s tolerable when the eve brings some lovely cool air. Intolerable when it doesn’t, and you sweat like a pig...in a sauna...at night. Said pig is wearing a fur coat too.
re differences in how the sexes shop...yeah, have heard that men are more like commandoes...drop in, execute, evacuate. Freddo Frogs are chocolate frogs. There’s an Australian comedian who does a bit on that...think to do with bawling children wanting them.
re Russian pizza death metal...do you want that clientele though? Think I posted that lounge music satire of a death metal song, I think, by Cannibal Corpse. You can hear the lyrics in that satire...just stomach churning! Thank God death metal singers sound like an incomprehensible Cookie Monster when they sing that! I think You Tube has vids of Cookie Monster’s voice over death metal type music...if you are interested!
re styled bohemian store...like I said, I get the feeling that there are actual bohemians who can deck out their own store in that style...for free! I must say that this kind of thing really bugs me...the whole constant bombardment with media wherever you go. You got restaurants and a music channel is on, or a tv show is playing. It’s like they want to create the feeling that you are in your living room...watching ads or whatnot. I’ve even ridden on buses where there are now tv screens showing blasted ads! At least there is no sound on them...yet. In what sense are you interested in the ‘outside mall phenomena’? In the sense you’d like to know if they sell more or less than malls where you can’t see outside for time clues?
re Skyhooks’ Horror Movie song...just read or heard or somewhere that this song was popular in the US for some reason...to do with Halloween, I thought. Since you’ve not heard it, maybe the media source was wrong.
re our talented singing politician...Mr. Speedo was predicting doom and gloom once certain government policies became law...the singer was just pointing out that the sky didn’t fall down. In an annoying way. When I heard the background music in the You Tube, I thought that an uploader just included it to clue the viewer into what the guy was referencing...but it was the pollie...and it really didn’t make him sound any better in any case!
re “If you leave me can I come too?” song...you enjoyed the vid...but what about the lyrics? I’m not aware of similar stuff coming out before but since that song, there do appear to have been some songs or whatever with that premise as the joke...the guy wondering if it’s okay if he goes with the woman who is dumping him...thus missing the point.
re ‘legitimate rape’...you saying that this wasn’t a Tea Party view...just your common, garden variety of Republican? Mr. Speedo has had to do a lot of spin since our female PM’s misogynist speech...he has been on record saying sexist kind of things - probably something on You Tube about that - but he’s getting his wife on tv now and happy snaps with his daughters to prove he is a lady’s man and not misogynist.
re you being shocked that we are forced to vote...but in the US you can’t really say that the winning party got at least 50% of the vote, can you? Basically, if you are lucky, the party with 25% of the vote from eligible voters wins government. And your electoral college systems sounds like a scam to keep the ‘wrong’ sort of candidate from winning! What you said about in the past only white land holding men being able to vote rang a bell...that’s because I was surprised to learn that that was the case in the state where I live until only a few decades ago! Okay, I’d be pretty sure that women could vote too...so long as they had land...or were married to someone who owned land! Think an Australian state was the first one in the world to grant women the right to vote. Not sure if we beat nations to that honour. re limiting voting practices in the US...Republicans not happy that blacks and hispanics get to vote? Think I’ve read of that kind of talk out of Fox News etc...the realisation that America is not a WASP nation anymore...they have to appeal to ‘minorities’ now...who are the majority. So, these restrictions on voting are intended to be plausibly denied attempts at stopping non-whites from voting? Over here the assumption is that young people vote Left, so the conservatives here apparently would like to have voluntary voting...on the basis that Left teens can’t be arsed voting and the ones that do will perhaps be more committed to the conservative side. re you wanting people to actually know who they are voting for...I think I mentioned before how I heard one young voting female here say she asked her parents who they would vote for...implied that she would just do as they do. But perhaps at that age spin works on them? They just think that the party of the left or whatever is going to save the whales or whatnot when really they are pandering to other interests.
Which reminds me...heard that the elections here are just catering to a few marginal seats...so, these people in those regions get polled on policies...inner city type electorates...where being tough on ‘boat people’ works well...just making the politics of the place skew more to the right.
re you voting for 3rd parties...have I mentioned that Simpsons’ ep where the two space aliens run for president on a platform of enslaving humanity? I think Ross Perrot or Ralph Nader run as the 3rd candidate...to save humanity. Humanity votes for one of the aliens...coz you’re just throwing away your vote on the 3rd party. Since the Greens here have been polling well in recent years, ‘Labor’ (I use the scare quotes because we actually spell it labour...so not sure how the US spelling arose) have now started to attack them as extremists...it seems to be working. Murdoch press particularly vitriolic against the Greens where I live.
re illegitimate goverment...my issue is that this is the language of revolution...incendiary. I don’t think that Mr. Speedo is advocating storming the barricades...it’s just rhetoric, but still. Maybe that kind of language in the US context would be more disturbing...I’m thinking of those survivalists in whatever hills they are reputed to live in!
re The Truth...I can see that they are down with the kids! E.g. this headline: “truth ripping it up. We’re hanging loose and taking in the Vans Triple Crown events in Hawaii.”
Over here, The Truth was the name of a salacious weekly newspaper...page 3 girls and all that...and the startling news that Kylie Minogue was in fact an extraterrestial! Sort of like the crazy Brit tabloids, I imagine...think I heard of a headline from there which said “Queen mum raped by space cucumber”. Maybe I dreamed that?
re that Truth anti-cig ad...do Americans have to make a song and dance about everything? It’s bloody unAustralian! I’m not convinced that it would motivate anyone to quit though...maybe Gruen panellists might disagree with me. re sweet tobacco vid...really? Confusing message at the end...saying they can’t sell sweet tobacco but they sell sweet tobacco...as in they are doing something unlawful? Maybe seems like a dumb question if that’s the case...otherwise not sure how to process that text at the end. Speaking of lingo differences - ages ago - I know that when I was a boy you could buy Fags. It was cigarette shaped lollies (candy)...one end was a red colour. Some years ago action was taken...not sure if the name was changed or something else. That body bags ad...Michael Moore type schtick. Do those ads work? Who are they aimed at? Seems like the company in that case. Does haranguing work? re grape flavoured monster...not sure we have that issue here...in the news here in recent years were ‘alco pops’...sweet flavoured hard liquor or just liquor. You know, raspberry and vodka...great bed fellows! Have been laws against that kind of teen marketing, I think, but I think that the booze companies always trying to work around the laws and denying they’re aiming at kids...they must have research showing adults love raspberry flavoured booze!
re Stone Roses songs being too long for you...do you think something like Beethoven’s 9th symphony sucks once it goes past 3 minutes length? What about Pachabel’s Canon? Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir? Personally I like some works...be it for a groove (like Canon or Kashmir) or other reasons. In other words the repetition on those works don’t bother me...they’re actually a positive for me. From memory, those Stone Roses songs didn’t seem to go too long for me either!
re 1870 rape law...hmm...just wondering about the notion of “rape” in this case. Is it rape? I’m being pedantic here, but it just doesn’t seem like rape to me. The woman ‘mistakenly’ consented to sex. Consent is present. It’s just a case of finding the ‘right’ crime to enforce. But hey, I’m not legal philosopher...but it just seems to me to be something odd about about the law. From the perpetrator’s perspectives, there’s the “Ha ha, fooled you!” line of thought, but is it rape? And there’s also the question of whether the alternative crimes would be sufficient to satisfy the victim, as well as the question of whether the penalty should satisfy the victim. E.g. an alternative crime might be trespass or whatever else. I suppose in a lawless society, the boyfriend or husband might beat the crap out of the perpetrator, but just wondering about the ‘right’ way to think about this legally. Oh, thought of another possible crime...one involving deception...but, again, what if the case involves the woman/person assuming that the perpetrator is their husband or boyfriend? Is that deception? So, just thinking semantically here.
Anyway, not sure if I’ve posted somewhere in this thread about odd laws which are still extant. No longer extant, did I mention the red flag law in the UK or whatever? Cars can’t travel faster than 5 mph, I think, and someone must walk in front of the car with a red flag or something. That 1870 law is odd too...perhaps a hint of women as chattel? From me, the act is the same whether the woman is married or not...but legally, in that case, the crime exists only if the woman ‘belongs’ to somebody, if that makes sense. That article you linked to - which I partically read - also mentions the 3 strikes law. Think that there have been articles critical of it, perhaps here...from memory, along the lines of you punish someone as severely as a murderer or something for doing something trivial...like, I don’t know, jay walking? Assuming that that is their ‘3rd strike’. Forgot to mention earlier...a judge here a few years ago got into trouble for suggesting that a woman may be subject to rougher than usual handling by her husband, from memory, in the context of having sex with her. I wonder if that is an issue of how he formulated the proposition, coz, in some ways it may be okay, but not in others. I’m poorly expressing this myself, no doubt...perhaps I could relate it to the example I gave before of disciplining children? Do you want to make all such acts criminal? Personally I think that there would be a line...so too with the ‘rougher than usual handling’ of the woman...it depends on the circumstances, but do you want to make every instance a criminal offense? Anyway, I’d rule out any examples of some obviously inappropriate ‘rougher than usual’ handling. And I’d have it work both ways...being in a relationship, a man or woman may interact with each other in a way which would be improper if they were not in a relationship. Or maybe here’s another example...think I mentioned an Australian comedian commenting (perhaps as a general excuse for men) about the line they ‘accidentally’ sodomised their girlfriend/wife. The woman could choose to make such acts a criminal act, but being in relationship...anyway, your example shows we may have similar views on this...or perhaps not...you were saying that the woman might not have called it rape if the guy was going at it without a condom when she was asleep...for me, I might consider this rape...no consent is involved...she did not give it...unlike the case of the ‘assumed’ boyfriend/husband. Now I’m rambling...
re sexting...what you say makes me wonder if we looked to the US for our laws on this, as far as our parliaments go. There is at least some discussion as to whether putting a teenager on the sex offenders list is desirable if they were in possession of nude pictures or whatever of their similarly aged girlfriend. Maybe the scenario is that boys being boys, they might share such photos...sort of as trophies for their ‘conquests’.
re you think it being bunk that teenagers brains aren’t developed or whatnot...have seen news articles in the last year or so on this, but in a different context...from memory, the frontal lobe or whatnot is not so well developed in teens...which makes them more impulsive and prone to dangerous behaviour. Perhaps similarly, this is what makes ‘first love’ pains so acute for them too...they don’t have the relevant parts of the brain developed enough to take such setbacks in their stride. Maybe I’m babbling now. Just going on memory. Probably a different thing to what you are saying to, re teens being responsible for their sexual activity...or maybe not. Dunno.
Sort of related, doesn’t the US have legal ages which are all over the shop? There was some song, maybe from the 60s, which mentions being old enough to fight in a war for the US but not to drink booze...or something like that...maybe. Over here you have to be 18 to drink alcohol. In the US it is 21, right? How old do you have to be vote? To have sex? You’d hate to get the ages mixed up, wouldn’t you?
re trolling...don’t remember if Insight went into the semantics of the term. Maybe it was on Media Watch where the irony of a tabloid here putting ‘trolls’ in the spotlight was highlighted...as in its accepted as being good policy to ignore trolls...and here was this tabloid just making a big thing about them.
It would be interesting to know if there are any common traits of cyber bullies, e.g. anonymous ones. Are they generally powerless and get a feeling of superiority by bullying people this way? With bullies who know their victim...maybe a similar thing, but with the ‘benefit’ that they know that the victim is powerless. Vaguely remember some story in the previous year or so about bullies...something to the effect that the methods to deal with them don’t work...maybe something like getting them to empathise with their victim doesn’t work, because...it’s just not a strategy that works. Sorry. Very vague that. Is Google my friend? It’s possible that this link may raise an issue I saw in the media:
http://bit.ly/WUSP8c
Perhaps #3 is something like what I read...not sure.
Did you/could you watch that Insight episode on trolling? I wouldn’t expect you to watch it...I was sort of just referencing my source there...kinda academic. If you did, it wasn’t region blocked?
re your definition of trolling...it actually sounds like stuff you see in comedy shows! E.g. Sarah Jessica Parker, I think her name is, often gets compared to a horse, in the looks department...this is in the mainstream media and if she doesn’t watch these shows, I’d be surprise if people didn’t mention them to her! That’s with regards to trolls who move from addressing fans to addressing celebrities. Would you view such comedy as trolling? Of a bad sort? Maybe sort of related, I have been disturbed by some internet groups who harrass people. One concerned a meme concnering an Asian girl who had a very tiny chin....there is some sort of website which features her and I think that some people just write really sexually explicit stuff about what they’d like to do to her or just mocking her appearance. That seems really mean...kind of like that stupid Anonymous response to those Australian DJs - who, I’ve read, are no longer on air...permanently, perhaps - I mean, insofar as having misplaced meanness goes. I don’t know if that website which featured that girl was something like this:
https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Main_Page
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe more underground than that. It just seemed a cruel kind of website with cruel members. Forget where I heard about this. Then again, tried finding the person I was thinking of, and this is the nearest that I got - not the right person - and the tone suggests that this is indeed the site where the Asian girl gets abused:
https://encyclopediadramatica.se/BlueshineWolf
An ad on that page mentions the term “lulz”, which sounds like it could be a key word for this kind of meme or whatever you call it.
Would you think the troll who played stupid to the abrasive computer guy in the Insight story was doing something valid?
Related, I agree with what you say about people who take over forums. If the computer guy was such a person, you’re saying that they are a troll? Is that the right word for them though? Semantics, again. I vaguely remember the phrase used by Jack Nicholson’s character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest...”Officious little prick”. Maybe that suits better than ‘troll’?
These people who have power in forums do seem to have a ‘gatekeeper’ mentality...they’re the bouncers at this establishment...they imagine themselves to be keeping the ‘riff raff’ out or whatnot.
There’s somebody on this site who has as a sig something like this phrase “A troll is someone who disagrees with me”. Hopefully they are being ironic! But I think that is indeed how many (most?) people view a troll...their tiny brains explode at the thought that somebody doesn’t agree with their opinion, which they learned from others in some sort of group...be it school or whatnot.
re no trolls back in the good old days...you sure? Wouldn’t there have been anonymous pamphlets or whatnot spouting all sorts of clap trap? I’m reminded of recently discovering the fact that there was a racist singer in the US in the 1960s, called Johnny Rebel. That’s a pseudonym, of course. Glanced at his Wiki entry and it says he rarely allows himself to be photographed and that people have mistakenly thought that somebody else was him...so, it seems he likes being anonymous and singing the most racist rubbish ever. Did see some of his song titles...they are amusing in a “Are you for real?” kind of way. As for my comments about pamphlets...referring to centuries ago...although I don’t have specific knowledge of examples which would prove my point...merely the suspicion that it might do so.
Anyway, I sincerely hope that you are not failing to hand in 3,000 word essays for uni but manage to write a 7,000 response to a random internet dude! Studies first! Random dudes second! I forget what you say you are studying. Can you remind me?
Gosh, nearly forgot, you mentioned liking Sherlock or something. I did want to mention a guy who I watch depending on the content...not sure how you’d describe him...magician? Hypnotist? The man is called Derren Brown. British guy. Some topics can be real car crash tv, from my point of view. Some topics I miss entirely. He’s basically a sceptic and takes on topics where faith may be involved. Really interesting one in a two parter called “Faith and fear”. Hmm. Actually “Fear and faith”. He orchestrated a sceptical scient
Gosh, nearly forgot, you mentioned liking Sherlock or something. I did want to mention a guy who I watch depending on the content...not sure how you’d describe him...magician? Hypnotist? The man is called Derren Brown. British guy. Some topics can be real car crash tv, from my point of view. Some topics I miss entirely. He’s basically a sceptic and takes on topics where faith may be involved. Really interesting one in a two parter called “Faith and fear”. Hmm. Actually “Fear and faith”. He orchestrated a sceptical scientist having a conversion like experience using psychological tricks. Sometimes I wonder if the ‘reality’ he is showing is an illusion! I.e. it’s all make believe! E.g. he had one show where he fooled somebody into believing that the end of the world had arrived. Some hypnosis was involved. Apparently Derren had ‘good’ reasons to do this. Bah, humbug! He did have a series called “The experiments” and I watched some of them...didn’t watch the ep where he covered ghosts or whatnot...I don’t think. He does ask questions which practitioners of seance-ing or whatever feel doubted. I’d be surprised if you get that show...do you? Oh, Wiki calls the guy a “mentalist”...there’s a US tv drama by that name...stopped watching it...I think the network played around with the screening times too much.
Here’s the Wiki URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren_Brown
Forgot to mention re male v female shopping tactics...what's the deal with women and shoes? "Oh, you're wearing Barry Manilowblahnik! Ooh!". Maybe as a kid I thought that some shoes looked cool...sport shoes, for instance, but you get over it...or at least you don't feel the need to get the latest look or whatever.
Back to songs which are too long...you like The Beatles' "Hey Jude"...the long, repetitive outro is actually the pay-off to the song for me! How about you?
Edit in (to break the 7,000 word barrier!)...I saw an interesting story on Four Corners last week (current affairs programme...not seen it for years prior...well, did record some eps recently and watched the stories on Lance Armstrong)...anyway, the story was about how the US has an underclass. There is no welfare in the US. Some families were interviewed. One large family lived in a hotel room...so, lot of people, little room. One young couple had the man work interstate whilst the mother of two small girls, I think, live in a car. The minimum wage was discussed too...one guy - who lived in the hotel - worked for Disney, for over a year...still getting rubbish pay though...maybe $7.90 an hour? By the sounds of it, his weekly wage would be roughly the same as what the unemployment benefit over here would be...guessing there. There has been some reports here that the unemployment benefit here is pitiful but there is political resistance to increasing it...its populist to be tough on 'dole bludgers' or whatever.
Here's a link:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2013/02/06/3684714.htm
The network which showed that seems to do a story on one of its shows every few years about the Aboriginal people here...many of them live in 3rd world conditions...so, worse than those Americans have it, perhaps. Don't watch those stories...nothing's changed. Depressing to watch. Not really news in other words, but the story gets recycled.
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Re mini tornados- There are things over here that each region seems to have a different name for, but personally I know them as “dust devils.” Best way I have to describe them are winds that whirl around physically like a tornado, but without the deadly speed, and they are short, like one-story building height or smaller, and I have never heard of one doing damage to anything. They just move dirt, litter, and leaves around a bit. Don’t know if that is the same thing as a “mini-tornado” though.
Re hurricanes v. cyclone- when I say cyclones get bigger I was referring to the diameter of the storms, not the winds. And, the longer a storm has over warm water, the bigger it gets, so the odds of a bigger storm coming out of the Pacific are better than the Atlantic due to more warm water being available.
Re lingo- with numbers, people say “o” for zero all the time. When it comes to groups of the same numbers, some people go shorthand and some don’t. Probably depends on whom they’re talking to and if they think the other person will understand them. For instance 5004442 would be “five, double o, three fours, two.” I have noticed that when people say something like “three fours” etc, they tend to say the first word faster and over enunciate the second and make sure the s is clearly heard. The word thongs over here refers both to the underwear and to a pair of shoes, though I think flip flops is taking over more and more in reference to the shoes, even though flip flops are technically a different style. As for rubber, the term is kind of outdated. Only place I’ve ever seen it used has been in some older writing and translation. Think may have come across it in a fanfic one time, but the author was a Brit, so don’t know.
Re sentence structure- I don’t know if ending sentences in a but or other conjunctive is a regional thing over here; I just know it happens. See it happen when body language (shrug, grimace, etc.) or a sound like “eh” can end the thought better than an actual description. Other time I’ve seen it used to sort of keep a conversation going because it can get the other person in the conversation asking questions.
Re flooding and houses on stilts- think we have some places over here that are mandated that houses have to be built on stilts because of water and potential flooding. Mostly on coast areas, I think, beaches, some swamps. As for insurance, flood insurance is not included in any regular policy over here on any housing insurance, whether you’re in a flood plain or not. All flood insurance is purchased separately, and most of it goes through a National Flood Insurance that is gov run.
Re games- as I am currently way behind on gaming consoles, my violent video game preference is either a demo version of Dead or Alive 2 that I have for Dreamcast or DOA2: Hardcore that I have for PS2. It just feels good to virtually pummel something when get angry. When not as PO’d but slightly irritated will sometimes play Crazy Taxi and enjoy making pedestrians jump out of the way of the cab. Not gory or violent in the traditional sense, but messed up in its own way. Games that require guns for violence usually don’t do much for me when trying to cool off, usually too focused on story and not very good so wind up dead more often than not and more frustrated from lack of getting anywhere.
Read a couple articles, think at the end of last year, where there are going to be some games coming out soon, or maybe they’re out by now, that there won’t be an option to come back from the dead at all. Can’t remember what they were calling that kind of game, but pretty sure some kind of zombie apocalypse game and a combat game were mentioned.
Re guns- yeah, no background checks in private sales, and don’t think purchases at most gun shows require any kind of background check either. The argument behind this wouldn’t stop criminals from getting guns is that criminals get their through illegal routes so harsher background checks would do nothing. There has been some progress in gun legislation in some states, or at least the laws are being passed around in the gov at state level. One is currently trying to get a law that would restrict magazine clips to holding a maximum of 15 rounds. There was another that had something trying to go through about assault rifles, but only saw that headline.
Re armed guards in schools- I’m saying that it seemed almost everyone that the news interviewed was shocked or some level of appalled that the idea would even be suggested. None of these people seem to really know what goes on in the schools since armed guards have been in the schools for much more than a decade, probably closer to two in some areas.
Honestly, when I was in school I never even thought twice about having the cop in the school, so I guess you could say I found it natural. I think the way it is approached had a lot to do with it too. The officer in the school was always shown as just another adult you could go to with certain issues. It was the same person all the time, so the kids got to know whom the person was, and it was a person that wasn’t some kind of a** out to prove a point like some cops can be; just a decent person that is there to help kids if needed. Also, the middle school I went to had around 300 kids when I was there, my high school had close to 3000. One cop in all of that doesn’t really seem that big a deal.
Student violence in schools comes from a combination of bullying, some cliques, and gangs. Frankly, as a student in a school over here, I worried more about the gangs than the armed cop in the building. To the best of my knowledge, while I was in school we never had any gang mess flair up on campus, and the few fights I knew about were one on one issues.
Private vs. Public schools- In the US, a school is called a public school if it is funded by tax dollars. It is called a private school if it is funded through tuitions and donations. Only about 25% of all US schools are private schools. Most of the private schools are religiously affiliated (~87%). Roughly 10% of all US students attend a private school. I know some private schools have scholarships available for students that may not be able to attend otherwise. There is one private high school around here that I know has been known to hand out scholarships to athletes.
Re stupid drivers- friend that was putting on nail polish going down the highway… yeah no feet on the pedals. Both up off the floor somehow. Don’t remember all the details, but just remember thinking she was nuts.
Re tea- all tea naturally has caffeine. Think even decaf technically has a little, it is just that they take enough out that it is such a low dose it doesn’t really affect a person.
Re “Black. Like I like my men.”- goes through all the time over here. Was flipping through channels in January and landed on one of those “talk” shows that is a bunch of women sitting around talking and one of the ones on there said it. For some reason relating a person to some kind of beverage and making it a sex innuendo doesn’t seem to get anyone’s panties in a twist; at least I’ve never heard of any of the groups complain about it.
Re sweet water- the water I was referring to was spring water, and doesn’t have anything added to it other than minerals that it may have picked up in the ground. Have heard of people calling spring water sweet in the past, so not just my imagination. Probably just tastes sweet in comparison to the water people are used to drinking out of the taps.
Re Gruen ad and race- I think Malay and Chinese are different races. I personally don’t believe race is only skin deep. If that were true people wouldn’t be able to look at skeletons and do a computer mock up of what the person possibly looks like, including skin colour, and certain races wouldn’t be more susceptible to certain illnesses. It aggravates me when people start talking about the greatness of diversity, but right after that expound on how everyone is the same, when biologically speaking, all the way down to DNA, it isn’t true. If you’re going to celebrate diversity, recognize it in all its glory and not just the politically correct BS.
Re DVD/Blu Ray regions- DVDs are divided into 10 different region categories using a number system to indicate where the disc is playable. Blu Ray discs use A,B, and C to denote regions, though ‘Region Free’ is also fairly common on blu rays. Actually took me longer than expected to find a BR disc that was region B to test if my player worked the way it was supposed to. Guess the studios finally figured out that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to keep restricting everything when it is easy to find ways online to get around all the blocking, and they probably see more money coming in, otherwise I imagine they would keep restricting things.
PAL and NTSC to the best of my knowledge are still in use, but it has more to do with the televisions themselves any more and the live broadcasts. Might be wrong on that, though. Do know that with VHS trying to playback one type on a set meant for the other would lead to tracking issues that couldn’t always be completely dealt with by the player. The discs I own have never acted up in playback as far as tracking, and picture looks the same no matter which region the disc was coded for, though apparently there is still some difference as sellers are still saying in descriptions which one it is.
Re The Social Network- never saw it. Don’t really want to see it. Probably one of those movies I should see, but unless it is on tv while completely bored I won’t bother with it. I’m not a huge movie buff (haven’t seen The King’s Speech either), and with the price of going to the theaters I shrink away from seeing a movie in theater unless it is a fantasy or action flick I’ve wanted to see. All the others can wait until it’s been on disc for a few years and find someplace to pick it up cheap, and then I get to see the behind the scenes stuff that comes with it, which in some cases I’m into that more than the story the movie is telling.
Re music app- I don’t see how getting the masses to describe music could work well for some kind of search engine. I could just see how many different genres and songs the word ‘relaxing’ could bring up. Music is so subjective that you really need a starting point beyond ‘that one song sung by some guy that goes [insert rhythm] really fast.’
Re Pauline Pantsdown “I Don’t Like It”- parts of this sounds vaguely familiar, especially about 1:30 to 2:00. Don’t know where I would have heard it before, though. Maybe it came up on here before.
Re Crowded House “Four Seasons In One Day”- bit strange vid even for a music video. Lot of symbolism going on in the lyrics that I’m not even going to try to guess at. Music abruptly cuts off about 10 seconds before the vid finishes. Do you know if it something artistic going on, or is the YT vid just messed up?
“Weather With You”- nice little song. Funnily enough I noticed it had started snowing again right as the chorus started. Think I’ll find some new weather to take with me.
Re temps- don’t much care for anything under 10 C myself, though 15 is more preferable. In the long run I guess it is better than our summers though. Easier to stay warm than trying to cool off. 50 C does not sound like a fun time. We’ve never had it quite that bad, though the heat index gets there sometimes. Definitely hibernation days and thank god for air conditioning! I do enjoy that first warm day of the year, though, when you can walk outside in shorts and a tee and can immediately feel the warmth soaking in.
Re death metal customers- don’t know much about the death metal followers, but I would imagine that if it is a place they are all hanging out at there is a certain level of respect for it, and wanting to keep it open since most places don’t want them hanging around. Would also think there would be some built in protection against robbery. After all, would you want to storm into a place filled with death metal followers and try to rob it?
Re outdoor malls vs indoor malls- with indoor malls one of the tricks is to make sure people don’t realize how much time has passed, whereas with an outdoor mall that is pretty much impossible to do since people become aware of the sun every time they leave a store, and at a certain level realize how much time has passed. There is also just the general weather issues, i.e. rain, snow, wind, heat, cold, nice days, bad days, etc. Granted most outdoor malls I’ve seen have some kind of roof or awning that covers a good portion of sidewalk to try to keep the patrons dry, but it doesn’t go all the way around. Guess just interested in the whole break down of which tends to work better for businesses and the psychology at work behind both (well, mostly outdoor ones since we’ve covered the indoor environ already.) Yes, my brain is this weird and yes I think about crap like this all the time.
Re women and shoes- you’re going to have to find someone else to ask. My newest pair of dress shoes is probably 4 years old, at least. My newest pair of shoes are the snow boots I had to replace this season because my puppy chewed up the pair I had had for about 10 years, and the pair I bought before that was a replacement of Columbia trail shoes that I scouted the web for several days to find that style since it had been replaced from when I had bought my first pair. That purchase was three years ago. The only shoes I have to replace with any sort of regularity are tennis shoes, and that is because my one foot tends to eat them. I can maybe get two years out of a pair, usually less. The only shoes I can identify the maker on sight are the ones with the logos on them – and that is usually only the athletic shoes and some of the hiking ones.
Re Skyhook “Horror Movie” song- since it is from ’75, it may have had a time when it was popular. Just not really the sound that they’re using for horror right now, except for maybe older, slightly cheesy horror by today’s standards.
Re “If you leave me can I come too”- As a song, I find it sort of entertaining, though the guy needs to get a clue and is a bit pathetic. In a real life situation, it would depend on the guy. Is it a case of the guy just really being that clueless, or are there real mental issues that you need to watch out for re violent tendencies toward self or others, and then handle the situation accordingly.
Re “legitimate rape”- yes, most Republican politicians are on this train. The legitimate rape issue really came to light because of abortion rights. Currently in the US it is supposed to be legal to get an abortion under a Supreme Court ruling, but Republicans at the state level keep chipping away and trying to make it absolutely impossible to legally get an abortion in the US. Most states have laws that it is legal in cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is at stake to abort the fetus at a later stage versus if the woman just doesn’t want the fetus. There is a Republican view point that having the exceptions rape, incest, and health are just big loop holes and if a woman decides late she doesn’t want to give birth and raise the kid she will claim one of the three to have an abortion. These weren’t the views of just the fringe Republicans. Paul Ryan, the man that was the Republican Vice Presidential candidate in the last election, he held the same beliefs. Claimed if elected he would follow Romney’s lead on the issues, but personally didn’t buy that for a second. Currently we have some states legislatures that are trying to pass “personhood” laws, which would count an embryo from the moment of conception as a person and give it full rights under the law. Don’t ask how any of this would actually work out in any scenario that might occur; Republicans are just looking for a way to outlaw any and all abortion or any method of birth control they deem abortion. So far two state legislatures have presented laws like this for the people to vote on. The first one was shot down and the next one is up for vote either this spring or in autumn.
Re voting- with the electoral college system (which I agree is a scam, and has been from day one) it isn’t a guarantee that the person who wins the popular vote wins the election. In one of the Bush, Jr. elections (think it was when he ran against Al Gore), Bush didn’t win the popular vote, but because of the states he did win, he won the election. So in this case who the most voters wanted didn’t win anyway. Still just seems odd that in a free democracy that you are required to vote. There are some people that see it as there right to not vote for anyone if there isn’t a candidate they agree with. While I can understand where they’re coming from as far as not having a good candidate, I don’t think you can really complain later, though, if you didn’t at least try to have your voice heard.
Republicans are going to be happy until the only people left able to vote are people that vote republican. This time around there were some groups that were saying that they were going support Romney because Obama didn’t follow through on promises made last time, but who knows what happened in the voting booth.
As for the young voter you mentioned that was copying her parents, that is exactly what I’m talking about. She doesn’t sound like she has any idea what the candidate actually stands for. She just thinks the parents know best and is a sheep mentality. Maybe I just see things differently because I don’t share many of the same political views as my parents, and both of them just vote with a party instead of a candidate.
Re voting 3rd party- most people have the view that voting 3rd party is just throwing it away, but at least my conscious is clear about it at the end of the day. And, the two party system hasn’t done anything for us lately, so bringing in new blood isn’t likely to do any worse damage than the old war horses. Many people also tend to look at the other parties like they’re all crazies because the crazier candidates are the ones that get the media attention (yeah, no conspiracy there at all). There are only a few nationwide, but there are some seats held by 3rd party candidates. If the Dems and Repubs keep going the way they are maybe we’ll get more 3rd party people in and something will get done beside finger pointing and posturing.
Re illegitimate gov- the language is supposed to be incendiary- just another political tactic. Maybe it is a US thing, but politicians throw language around all the time that one group or another finds incendiary. It’s just demonizing someone to get you constituent up, usually in a time of trying to pressure someone to do something. Maybe in a country that is more used to having a revolution, or has had one in recent memory calling a gov illegitimate would cause real problems, but I think in the US you’d have a hard time getting enough people together that the local national guard couldn’t deal with.
Re sweet tobacco- The law apparently is that companies can’t sell sweet tasting cigarettes, but they can make other types (like chewing tobacco) taste sweet. There is more info in the description, but given that the campaign likes to use shock as their main tactic, it isn’t surprising they try to twist it in the vid.
Re attack ads- don’t know if they really work or not. Supposedly teen smoking is down in the US, but I don’t know if that is more from these ads, because access is more difficult, parents are pushing their kids not to smoke, or because people are more aware of the dangers they don’t light up, and I think it would be pretty difficult to know for sure. Suppose it is better than just saying don’t do it, which with some kids would just make them do it to be a rebel.
Re flavoured booze- over here there has been a huge influx into the market in the past couple of years of different flavoured alcoholic drinks. Everything from hard raspberry lemonade to marshmallow flavored vodka. My guess is that in part it is trying to get people that don’t normally drink a certain kind of liquor due to taste to start buying it because the new flavor supposedly will make it taste better. I’ve only found one liquor I can stand the taste of, and even that has to be cut with something, so not really sure.
Re Stone Roses- it just didn’t go anywhere for me. I enjoy quite a bit of classical music, but the movements go somewhere for me, where as I didn’t get that from the Stone Roses music, and I’ve never heard Zeppelin’s Kashmir to the best of my knowledge.
I really can’t remember if we’ve ever discussed The Beatles here or not, but I’m not a huge fan. The only place I’ve ever heard “Hey Jude” is on the radio, and I doubt the full version has ever been played, especially since I’m seeing some vid that put it at 7 minutes long.
Re 1870 rape law- Legally I don’t know how it would work, but I would consider it rape because the woman didn’t not knowingly give consent to that man, and if she had known who was in bed with her, she would not have consented to the act. In a modern society you do not expect strange people to just climb into bed with you and start trying to have sex, so by not IDing himself, I think the guy was raping her.
Agree that people act differently in a relationship vs not in one, though ‘rougher than usual handling’ needs more definition. Are we talking he wants it more and she should just give it up, and if not he has some right to be more aggressive about getting it, or are we talking where the relationship started as almost strictly vanilla and it was later discovered he was into some heavy duty BDSM and she is supposed to go with it? Or that he just isn’t as careful as he was before and now it is more wham-bam-snore and she’s on her own? For me it is a case by case basis.
re teen brains-I really don’t think it can be used as an excuse as often as it is. While yes a teen brain is not developed to the point of an adult brain, giving free passes doesn’t teach responsibility that needs to be instilled. It teaches that you can get away with this because you’re young, and most adults don’t want to admit that teens are smart enough to figure that part out. The underdeveloped, more risk willing may extend to ‘you don’t have a condom? Who care’s. Let’s risk it’ but I believe they can give consent as well as the next person re sex, especially if they threaten to go public about it if they get mad at their partner and know it will get him/her into trouble.
Re all over ages- In the US the legal drinking age is 21, and that is at the federal level. At one point it was 18, but at some point someone convinced Congress to raise it to 21. If the states didn’t fall in line and recognize 21 as the minimum drinking age, the feds didn’t give them money to help with something (think it was maintaining highways and roads in the state. Heard a story where one or two states tried to hold out and the roads were in such bad shape that they had no choice but to cave.) Voting age is 18, again at the federal level, and to the best of my knowledge there are no deviations from this at a lower level – would be too confusing to keep track of what ballots a person was allowed to fill out. This is also the age that men are required to register with the draft board so in the even of a war where the draft is instated there is a current list of men 18 and over in the US to pull from. Legal age for sex is decided by the states. The one I live in it is 17. Think I’ve heard of at least one it was 16. Think most people just assume 18 for safety’s sake.
Re trolling- Think it was the Insight bit that the page that came up was the transcript page, and I just read through that without trying the video. Worked better for when was trying to find a reference in typing a response anyway.
Re defining trolls- Comedy sketch shows are difficult to pin, and as I’m sitting here thinking about it, what they do could probably be considered a type of trolling. My big issue is that I see trolling as an online thing where the troll is trying to mentally and/or emotionally hurt the person they are attacking.
The ‘Encyclopedia Adramatica’ you linked too looked like a collection of trolls-r-us. One of those sites that makes me loose all faith in people from what was posted on it. A bunch of @**h*l*s that have nothing better to do than attack other people. Looked up lulz and it started out as a general plural for LOL, but has been sort of taken by trolls and moved out of more mainstream internet usage. One site I found equated it to schadenfreude.
With the abrasive computer forum guy, I’d want to see his posts and the posts of the guy that was playing dumb. In this case it could be a matter of language used and how it was used, because while tone can be difficult to pick up online, if the person is a jerk certain words, word order, sometimes stress can give them away. The guy that played stupid could have mad the problem worse in the long run because then the other guy is now out to prove himself to the whole board. Again, would need to see some of the interactions to really know.
Re real life “trolls”- Even if a pamphlet was distributed anonymously, someone would have to have written it up, printed/copied it (be it by hand, moveable type or modern print machine), and get it to the place it was to be distributed. At any one of those points the person runs the risk of being ID and is putting their physical being out there. Even Johnny Rebel is putting himself out there to a degree because he has to records somewhere, and in the ‘60s it wasn’t likely to be a friend’s basement, and he probably did some performances, so he may be a racist bastard, but he was putting himself on the line. A troll runs under an anon. name online, if they are hard core like the ones interviewed they either have some hacking skills themselves so know how to protect themselves and probably have killer equipment to help keep themselves safe. If someone gets too close all they have to do is close one anon. account down and open another one and the person that originally caused them to shut down acct A is back to square one. If someone left a pamphlet someplace, it is much easier for someone to physically follow them than track a anon name online.
Re uni- been done with bachelors for few years now. Studied History as a major, and geography as a minor. I think my most of my professors would not have been happy had I turned in a 7000 word paper. Most of the ones had to do were short, only 3-5 pages double spaced, figure 250 words a page, so around 1250 words total. The papers are saved on the computer I’m currently using, and actually went back to some of the ones I knew were longer, and the longest one is just over 6000 words. The problem with long papers is that they have to be graded, and in a class of 50+ it isn’t really ideal, especially if it is a paper due at the end of term with a short turn around for when professors have to have the final grades in.
Re America’s new poor- it has been a common story over here since the economy went. The gov keeps saying that unemployment is getting better and everything is improving, but it is still hovering over 8%, and these companies that downsized before have figured out how to operate more efficiently and don’t need all of the people they got rid of. Think it was 60 Minutes that did a story similar to this one a couple years ago. The guy working as a Disney Park greeter shouldn’t expect to get a pay raise unless he moves positions, and even that isn’t guaranteed. Amusement parks aren’t known for paying employees great sums.
More manageable word count: 5195
re “dust devils”...pretty sure we have those over here too, but they’re piddly little things. So...a “mini-tornado” seems to be something bigger than a dust devil but smaller than a tornado. Think there was a “mini-torndado” here in the news the other day...quite destructive...think some people died and property destroyed. This might be a video of it...not sure if you can view it and it’s not dated...it looks like a regular tornado...think I may have seen news reports where it’s called a ‘mini-tornado’ though. Hmm.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/video/vic/watch/b658b6cc-8dd5-3d4b-9ae3-bff3a 3e47735/dramatic-video-up-close-with-victoria-s-tornado/
Oh, it’s on You Tube too, and dated 4 days ago at the time of writing. The comment by temp850 maybe relates to the issue of “mini” re tornados? That was 4 days ago too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoHnyYFbyKc
re phone number conventions...I thought Australia was different to the US, as in we say things like “double...”. Personally, I’d say something like “triple...” instead of “three...”. So, “Triple oh” for “000” or numbers with x3 repeats. Hmm...probably wouldn’t say “quadruple” or “quintuple”...too pretentious, say? Might go for “double x double x” instead of quadruple x. Hmm...maybe my thought on this is proven by that Family Guy bit I mentioned last time, I think...re conventions...isn’t Peter’s form of giving the numbers more American? Anyway, found the bit on You Tube...
Family Guy - Peter Griffin gives his mobile phone number to Consuela, the maid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVr4bY8NsH8
re mandated that houses be built on stilts...eminently sensible! Looks like over here it used to be just common sense but maybe lack of rain for long enough just meant that the reasons for this got forgotten. Maybe architects there just thought that stilts were a passe fad? Also, I think I’ve heard some people complain about a lack of insurance cover in these regions...or very expensive cover in these regions...but gee...floodplain...high risk.
re video games...DreamCast! Man...you’re old! Was that the last one before...not, that’s Sega...I thought it was the one before Nintendo’s Wii, but they’re different makers. Currently having probs with my PS3...thought it was a buggy game of XCOM:EU, but my console has carked it. Apparently $179 or some such to repair it, as it’s out of warranty. You could almost get a new console for that price I think, but with minimal hard drive space. If I did have problems with the game I was playing, then the console seems to be like those old Windows OSs. I.e. you’re browser freezes so...you can’t do ANYTHING on your computer! Nowadays if one thing crashes, everything else runs at least. Think it’s a proprietary thing...as in Sony has got a lock on its system...apparently XBOXs allow you to transfer your data from your stuffed console onto another hard drive where it’s safe. Not so with PS3. Hopefully PS4 won’t be like that...more PC like, apparently...not sure I’ll get it though...depends what Sony are like with my broken PS3. I bought into PSN+, which allows online saves of your game data...how getting that data back to your console works isn’t clear at all to me...hopefully I haven’t wiped that info online by being online with my reset console...as in resetting the console wipes all your data on the console...when you’re online the console will ‘syncrhonise’ your date with the PSN+ data...which happened the other day...really fracking annoyed if my online data is wiped. Hello? Did I just send you asleep then?
re permanent death zombie game...I think that’s Day Z. It’s that perma-death mode which makes people really involved in it. I’ve linked to Good Game before...they reviewed that game too, here...
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/video/default.htm?src=/tv/goodgame/v ideo/xml/20120605_2030.xml&item=07
It’s a mod of the ARMAII game, so you currently need ARMAII to play it. But apparently the dev is working on making it a stand alone game. Did also hear of a guy playing the old PS3 game Far Cry 2 in perma-death mode...I bought that game dirt cheap not that long ago. Like I said, I was playing XCOM:EU before my console carked it. There’s a word for how I play games...”save scumming”. I.e. if I get into trouble, I reload. So, no doubt I’m not playing the game “as intended”. If I get all the trophies for that game, I might play in a way which means I don’t try and avoid deaths etc. Apparently people who play the game that way get really attached to their soldiers and mourn their passing. Didn’t quite experience that, except when chasing a trophy for having a soldier survive every mission in the game. There was a bs bit where I moved near a car and the next turn it exploded...and killed my full health/superior armour soldier, who I was using to get that trophy. Sucks. Hello? Did I send you to sleep again?
Oh, since you mentioned you like beating up people in video games thought I’d mention Fight Night. Meant to be a very good boxing sim. Not played it myself though. Might try the next installment perhaps...on the next gen console...who knows. Have played most of the Metal Gear games...if you go for the highest rank at the end of the game, you need to not kill anybody yourself...so, some of the boss fights can be beat ‘em ups...but they get to live!
You mention being into the stories of those video games (for DOA? Really? Not played it myself but hard to imagine any depth there!) and so dying as a result...I remember one of the difficulty options for Mass Effect 2 was a story mode...i.e. the combat is nerfed so that you don’t have to be a very effective fighter in the game as it is tailored to get you through the story by being easier on you. Was annoyed playing XCOM:EU for the first time...I failed due to too many nations leaving the anti-alien fighting organisation so...the game ended prematurely for me...which is when I went really into my save scumming strategy...did not want that to happen again!
re argument that criminals would not be deterred by gun checks...criminals wouldn’t be deterred by armed guards in banks...so...pointless having armed guards in banks?
re you not being fussed by armed staff at your school...maybe that’s a bad thing? Not that I’m making the comparison, but it would be sad if some school children got used to gun fights and now the sight of gun shot wounds didn’t bother them. Apparently you can put a frog in a pot and start to boil it. The frog dies eventually...it never jumps out because the change in temperature is subtle or something...e.g. throw it in hot water and it jumps out, of course. Maybe the US will get more and more measures to counteract school shooting and the bar for “Normal” will get lifted...and Americans will wonder why the rest of the world thinks that they’re nuts? The problem with gun control in the US I think is that there are so many nutters in the US that maybe not having a gun is nuts. As in maybe gun ownership is a genie in the US which is well and truly out of that bottle and impossible to put back in? I don’t think Australia has ever had the kind of gun ownership levels that the US has had...but I think I read recently that there are a lot of gun imports now...so, not really sure what that is about.
re private schools...same definition here. Curious why the UK has the seemingly misleading label “public” school there...deliberate obfuscation? Double think?
re “Black. Like my men”. In the movie Airplane a little girl says it...which is why I thought it might be un PC now...guessing she was like 10 y.o. or something...give or take. Over here some artists have been pilloried for taking pictures of young kids...in the nude perhaps...like they’re paedos or something. Think I read of a story recently where some parents had some film developed at a store (they still do that?) and they had their children removed because one photo or whatever was of a toddler in the nude. That kind of stuff now sees people branded as paedos, which is crazy. Think they got their kid back, but appalling to be subject to that kind of rubbish.
re race...I was under the impression that differences between the races was superficial, but people do get hung up on appeareances. No expert in the field...just my impression that not much difference between the races. Have heard of lighter skinned African Americans being negative towards darker skinned African Americans...it’s a superficial difference, perhaps, but people get hung up about stuff like that. re computer imagery...I would have thought that physical feaures would inform the reconstruction...so, what is produced as a projection of the skull etc would be due to the structure of the skull and not necessarily a racial feature...as in if one person of one race had a feature similar to the stereotypical feature of another race, the computer wouldn’t pretty much come up with the same kind of ‘fleshed’ out face for both...other things being equal, of course. Dunno really though.
re restricting Blu Rays etc...well, apparently Australians have a “Charge me more! I’m Australian!” sign on their heads when they shop online. Our government is holding an enquiry into pricing practices...Apple and Google, I think, have been forced to appear before it. With some PC software, it’s apparently cheaper to fly to the US from here and back to buy the product than buy it online when they know you live in Australia. Hopefully it will be shown to be a scam and we’ll be protected from being ripped off in this manner.
re NTSC...think I may have tried viewing such content here...from memory, you got banding or something like that. But I think the Never Same Color Twice acronym arose for that system in the US, not due to being played in a different region. From memory, seeing US content here on the news or whatever, years ago, it looked pretty garish. Apparently our government delayed colour a long time here so we picked the superior format...which is PAL, apparently.
re Movies...I thought that The Social Network was a great movie...should have gotten Best Film over The King’s Speech. Haven’t been to the cinema in many weeks. Loads of near 3 hour movies out recently for some reason. Was going to watch Cloud Atlas but then I saw that it was near 3 hours long...breaks Alfred Hitchcock’s bladder rule by x2, I think! Have seen some long movies though recently. Only can watch discs on my PS3, and not a good method for me, so don’t do it that much...finnicky remotes and everything. Not really into bonus content either...especially audio commentaries...why watch a two hour movie with the director or whoever crapping on? How much does a ticket cost there? We have cheap Tuesdays, which is when I usually go...costs about $11 or so, which isn’t too bad. Annoying that there’s a lot ‘upsizing’ going on...a movie on at a good time for you might be in very wide screen, which costs more or in 3D. Cinemas are finding all sorts of new ways to part more money from you!
re Pauline Pantsdown familiar to you...hmm...maybe I linked to that earlier re Australian comedy songs. I think the song is actual stuff Pauline Hanson has said.
re music app...maybe if some descriptors are common in describing music it might be easier to find similar stuff. Personally, having heard albums by acts like Patti Smith and Television and Wire etc, I wonder if they’re actually punk, like they’re described. A band like Metallica are called “thrash” but I find their debut album unlike anything else they recorded. Drawing lines in music genres can be fraught, no doubt!
re Crowded House...when I hear “Four seasons in one dad”...probably just a poor upload, losing some audio. Here’s a DIY video for the song with what sounds like the original fade out (never really heard or chose to listen to this song on the radio before but gee, it’s nice...might have to change that!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9RCyiC6odY
re it snowing during chorus of “Weather with you”...as a kid in primary school, I remember the class being astounded by seeing rain fall out of one window but when you went to the other side of the room no rain could be seen falling through the opposite window...yuh...we were all too easily impressed!
re you liking 15 degrees...chilly for me. I forget what the transition is, but sometimes 23 degrees at night feels cold and others it feels warm...depends what season you are in though, I suppose. You mention liking the warmth soaking in first warm day...inappropriate comment here...I was watching a best of Graham Norton (gay chat show host in UK...not a big watcher, especially since he went on to commercial tv over here)...anyway, some guys mentioned getting a manzilian wax. Despite the pain, he said the noise was also a bad aspect of the experience...but the plus side was feeling a breeze on your newly freed bits...which goes back to what you were saying about the first warm day of the year...kinda the same?
Hmm...an Australian comedian hosts a chat show in the UK “The last leg” and one of his regulars found a You Tube of him getting a...”boyzini”...the segment appeared on US news or something (i.e. that’s where the regular found the You Tube from)...anyway, I found the source of the footage...the comedian’s Australian show...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7RmeAJM1wo
Isn’t it good we can chat like this? No? Ok.
re death metal customers at a Russian pizza restaurant...hmm...I just wonder if the poor owner was sucked into advertising on that programme by whoever and he didn’t realise he could have advertised on the Italian Cooking Show or whatever!
re indoor/outdoor malls...what’s your interest in this? Hobby? Where I live a main street got turned into a pedestrian mall. Think cabs and buggies could use it...not sure if that is still the case though...sort of half pregnant really, re being “pedestrian”. Sort of related, I channel surfed onto Triple R’s “Einstein a go go” or whatevs, and they mentioned smell-o-vision (whatevs). Not sure if they were joking when they said KFC ads could have the waft of their food assault you. Or get a whiff of coffee when someone drinks it in a show. Just another way to sell you stuff! Harder to do in an outdoor mall though! Maybe they could try it though...e.g. the smell of stale urine assaulting you might remind you to buy some anti-septic liquid or whatevs.
re your shoe situation...sounds like we need U.S.A. for Libra! We are the world...
Never watched Sex In The City but I read that Mahno Blahnik is “thing” in that show. There, I know something about high fashion women’s shoes! 2nd hand knowledge, of course. Or is that 3rd hand knowledge?
re rape/gun laws...I read a follow up story to that case I posted on last time, I think, re the football team and Anonymous:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/teens-incriminated-by-social-media-found-g uilty-of-rape-20130318-2gb4h.html?skin=text-only
I thought the bit in paragraph 6 was interesting, re witnesses willingness to testify in the wake of Anonymous’ involvement.
You said re that rape case:
“but I would consider it rape because the woman didn’t not knowingly give consent to that man”
...but we can say that she unwittingly gave consent to the man, right? That’s my point, really...there was consent of some form, so “rape” doesn’t really seem like the right word to me...which is not to say that nothing criminal has happened. Be interesting as to what kind of sentence would be available if the law agreed with me...i.e. what would be the alternative charge and what punishment does that give?
re “rougher than usual handling”...not really familiar with the case...just skimming some articles online...here’s a news story and one opinion blog by a lawyer, I think:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/judges-rape-tales-infuriate-au stralian-women-1478386.html
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2006/11/05/rough-justice-judge-was-handled-ro ughly/
I’d obviously want to draw a distinction between ‘rougher than usual handling’ v rape. Maybe the relevant bit of the newspaper article is the 4 pars from “Mr Justice Bollen told the jury: ”.
Have heard that the anti-gun measures in the wake of the assassination attempt on Reagan have been whittled back. Seems the NRA’s philosophy is just to hold the fort until people forget about the current massacre and then it’s back to business as usual.
This week (time of writing) there was something in the paper about hospital security guards here wanting guns to deal with druggies. Hmm. Be surprised if that happens though...different culture here...can’t say I’ve heard loads of stories about hospital staff being killed or whatnot by druggies.
Through US pop culture I know about Roe v Wade (? did I get that right?). Just by the by...think I mentioned that UK sitcom Fresh Meat about uni student room mates...the rich dick tried starting a catch phrase to be used as a superlative “That’s rape!”. Hmm. Heard a US comedian on the radio over here...saying how he moved into an apartment, I think, and a woman resident offered to help him move his mattress, saying something like “A rapist wouldn’t have their own mattress”. The comedian said on the radio “What I should have said was...nothing!”. But he did say to the woman “You’d be surprised!”. He’s got a movie called “Sleep walk with me” or whatevs. Not sure if its rape or not. Some of the blurbs for the movie say its rape (or a good superlative!). Anyway, Mr. Speedo sounds conversative too...along the lines of having an abortion is an ‘easy’ option for women. Not sure if he’s catholic...something like that. I’m sympathetic to abortion not being desirable but think that the pope’s prohibition on condoms is stupid. I.e. condoms as a method of birth control is okay, but abortion isn’t ideal. Years ago, there was an independent senator who held the balance of power who got the conservative government (I think) to ban the French (I think) morning after pill RU458 or whatever it was called. I’m more okay with a drug like that than abortion being just another method of birth control.
Think I heard in passing something about Republicans trying to not turn off Hispanic voters or something...if their vote keeps dwindling maybe they’ll have to rethink alienating some women too re abortion laws.
re incendiary language in politics...have read some stuff on the NRA’s leader recently. Turns out NRA donations increase when he attacks politicians. So, whatever the guy’s name is, he has said some inflammatory things in the past...one time he apologised, but he got feedback saying people thought that he shouldn’t have apologised. Next time he didn’t, I don’t think. The lesson is if you say incendiary things in the wake of a massacre or whatever, the money comes rolling in to the NRA!
Remember a while back I posted a You Tube of that Australian sketch comedy show re dance instructors? Also mentioned Roy & H.G’s Olympic gymnastics commentary but we never found the bit I actually would link for you. Anyway, found a good gymnastics You Tube from the same woman who did the dance instructions...from the same show too...I’ll post both that and her dance instructions, in case you forgot...
Berylina Stumpy - Australian Olympic gymast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xlGGnsKD7M
Les Larbey and Margaret Bland Galaxy of dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ8y_FxgxAA
Remember Shaun Micallef? I linked to his ‘drunk’ You Tube which I think you liked. Anyway, he’s got a new show and this bit cracked me up the other day...does it seem familiar? I like his version better...makes more sense...(i.e. it’s funny because it’s true):
Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell (interview with Clavis Sinica)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYI093SeZPI
re America’s worki
Remember Shaun Micallef? I linked to his ‘drunk’ You Tube which I think you liked. Anyway, he’s got a new show and this bit cracked me up the other day...does it seem familiar? I like his version better...makes more sense...(i.e. it’s funny because it’s true):
Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell (interview with Clavis Sinica)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYI093SeZPI
re America’s working poor, I was watching 7:30, I think it was (a programme, not a timeslot! Used to be called The 7:30 Report) and it mentioned an appalling situation in my city...rooming houses can be pretty bad. They mentioned a place which charged $140 per week for a bed. No, not a room, a bed. So, basically, for $140 per week you’d get a bed and...you could share the room with up to 5 more. That is really bad! Apparently the government is cracking down on such practices. Think the residents might have been homeless or something. I once was looking for a room or a place listed at uni, many years ago. One of the ads basically involved renting the loungeroom, I think! I.e. it sounded like every conceivable part of the house was being rented out. Sounded pretty bad. Obviously didn’t take that up! The Hun also ran a story about sickness benefit homeless guy or something...think it said he got near $800 a fortnight. He’d sometimes pay for a hotel room or something. That would equate to about $300 a week...which is pretty much what a decent one bedroom flat would cost a week now! Mentioned that to a waitress and she couldn’t believe he was homeless either (oh, that’s right, story about begging crackdown or something). Anyway, I did come up with the argument that it might be hard getting a reference for such a one bedroom flat if you were homeless!).
re flavoured booze...you don’t think flavours like raspberry is specifically targetting a younger palette as opposed to catering to adult non-drinkers?
re Stone Roses and repetitive...you’ve not heard Pachabel’s Canon? You like it? Here’s my favourite Led Zeppelin song...
Kashmir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQH3LtNePgI
re drinking ages in the US...federal blackmail? Anyway, you can see that politicians want ‘under age’ boys to fight their wars for them but God forbid they be allowed to buy some booze afterwards! Seems a relic of Prohibition, perhaps? Odd logic in any case. Why is it okay to vote or die for your country by 18 but not drink booze? Where I live, we used to have something called “the 6 o’clock swill” - I’ve heard of this - where men would kwoff down booze before the pubs shut at 6 pm. Not sure what the logic of that was...sort of half pregnant logic or something.
re comedy as trolling...I think I read a blurb by a comedian for the current Melbourne International Comedy Festival to the same effect! Re Encycopedia Dramatica...I did come across one of their entries...an Asian girl who had a very slight chin and basically loads of people were just being nasty to her and some were writing very explicit sexual fantasies about her. You hope that whe was oblivious to it or just ignored. Like you say, people can be @r$#401#$.
re pamphlett trolling...I’m not sure...maybe centuries ago they snuck about at night or something? I do remember reading of one famous American pamphleteer during the US WoI...forget what his name was though...wondering if he was anon. at the time though...as in only after the WoI did he come out of the closet, so to speak. Sort of related...you mention hacking skills by these guys...did read recently of one kid who had his PC hijacked on one of those online games and all his stored value which he worked so hard for was stolen. He learned how it was done and...did it to somebody else. Hmm.
re 1250 word length essays (gosh, it might take me that long just to say what my essay was about!)...that seems 1st year uni length essays. How long were you required to submit essays that length for your course? I have heard of course here ‘dumbing’ down their subjects, e.g. for maths or science subjects because the high school curriculum has apparently been dumbed down too. Sometimes you read news stories here and it’s like a mediocre high school student wrote it...maybe I’m saying that the world is getting stupider or something! Then again, maybe a lot of it is just due to the extremely biased Murdoch press attacking the current government...they’re always going on about the bias of the ABC - the BBC equivalent here - and now you see right wingers on the ABC providing ‘balance’. Hmm.
re US unemployment at 8%. Is that a credible figure? Over here, I think governments have changed the way that they calculate unemployment to make them look better. So, if you know someone who has a job, or know someone who knows someone who has a job, you’re pretty much counted as employed. Well...I think the rort is that the government counts you as employed for even the slightest amount of hours you work...whereas previously there might have been a higher threshold to be considered employed. Have heard that some European countries have unemployment rates of around 33% in some countries, and over 50% for young people. Years ago I read of the situation around WWII I think it might have been...currency became worthless in some countries (oh, the term I’m looking for is “hyperinflation”) and things got so bad that poor British people could take their pittance to those countries and live like kings...sort of. Did hear in recent years of some African country, perhaps, printing a trillion dollar note or something...maybe that could have bought you a coffee the day after? Things can get pretty bad, that’s for sure.
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Re mini tornado- it seems from the video and the information in the description (found the channel 7 vid uploaded on a different source and the YT link said the vid wasn’t available and the other link was just having issues) the tornado shown was a 3 (out of 5) on the EF scale, which measures the destructiveness of a tornado’s winds. My guess it would be considered a “mini” because it wasn’t very wide at the base, but still seemed like a destructive little thing.
Re phone number conversations- like I said before, some people use it and some don’t. People I know use the double and triple when rattling off numbers. In instances where they are talking to someone where there could be some confusion, they tend to say each number individually. Another thing is that in a number like the one used in Family Guy, (401-555-1125) instead of saying the last four digits separately, a lot of people combine it into two two digit numbers, i.e. would say “eleven twenty-five”.
Re video games- as far as consuls go, the most recent three I own are PS2, Sega Dreamcast, and the N64. Handheld is a bit more updated with the DSlite, and considering getting a 3DS later this year, but prices of games and consuls combined with lack of funds makes it difficult to keep up. Plus wasn’t until oh about the last year, maybe year and a half that I’d be able to use any online features with the different systems. Had internet at home, but where the consuls were hooked up vs where the internet hookup was would just have made a mess and parents constantly complaining about it.
Re Day-Z review- the reviewers kept saying the game was in “alpha”. Is this the same as saying a game is in beta or is it like a step between beta and a full release? Have never gotten into the soldier/survival games yet. The game that was real big while I was still playing more was one of the Halo releases, except I think it had only released on Xbox and I had absolutely no interest in getting an Xbox. Could have picked up a Call of Duty game cheap recently for PS2, but it was a WWII version, and had no interest starting the soldier games in old setting.
Re games with stories- don’t really get into the stories of any of them. Not good enough to actually survive long enough to really get into the real story part. Might get better with practice, but don’t have much hope I’d ever be a very good gamer. DOA doesn’t have much story at all, at least not the versions I’ve played. Their idea of story is just playing something like six fights in a row and then the boss.
Just came across this recently and think we may have glossed over it in the past, but since you’re obviously more involved in games than I am, have you heard anything about this OUYA system that is supposed to be out soon? I can’t imagine that having such an open system to any wanna be developer is going to work out the greatest. Seems like it could waste a lot of time scrolling through trash to get to anything decent, and if something happens to your little storage cube you loose everything. Give me the discs any day.
http://www.ouya.tv/discover/
Re gun checks- there’s a lot of crims that buy their guns out of the back of a car or gang members that get it from another gang member. Checks are already in place in a lot of places that want to buy legally, but most people are fairly lax about checking. Throwing more legislation at something when people aren’t even doing what is already on the books isn’t going to fix anything. As for armed guards in banks, have seen very few of those in my life time, maybe only large banks have them? But, armed guards will sometimes deter, sometimes not. Depends on the people doing the robbery and if they are okay with shooting/killing someone.
I don’t think having armed police in school is going to make kids any worse off. The school I went to had around 700 kids when I was there and 1 armed law enforcement person. The high school I went to was just shy of 3000 students and 1 armed cop. While the idea of not having an armed populous sounds nice, I don’t foresee it happening in the USA anytime soon. There are too many enclaves in the US where people will not give up their guns for anything because it some blah, blah, blah <insert crazy commentary about government evils and coming apocalypse> etc. Pretty much the entire state of Idaho, the backwoods areas of the Appalachian mountains, and the more rural areas of the South are just a few of the areas where the residents think that the government, especially at the federal level, has no right telling them what to do. Even if something was passed where people had to give up their guns, I don’t know how you could police that everyone had turned in all of them without doing a complete and through search of every apartment, house, and hotel room in the country – and even the people that are for getting rid of the guns would not stand for that, not to mention you’d have to assume that people are still going to find a way to hide the weapons and not turn them over.
Re parents getting turned in over nude toddler shot- I thought it was customary for parents to have at least one nude shot of their children doing something embarrassing when they are young like that so that when the child starts bringing dates home the parents can bring out the photo album and embarrass the now grown up child. I suppose in today’s world everything is suspect until proven innocent, even something like that that has been going on as long as there have been easy to use personal cameras. Personally I don’t understand why parents think nude baby/toddler pictures are cute, or why they think it is fun to bring them out to show a kid’s date. Guess I just don’t understand the whole humiliation thing. I know many parents aren’t doing it with that intent, but still don’t understand the reason behind why parents – mainly mums I guess – think it is the thing to do.
Re race - People of African descent have a higher chance of sickle cell anemia, (also heard some say they have a higher chance of developing Type II diabetes, but it’s still really debated if that is a genetic issue or more of a social/culture/diet one), European decent has a higher percentage of MS. There are heart issues that affect African descent more than others. Native Americans run a higher risk of alcoholism, and Asians have a higher percent of lactose intolerance. If people were really all the same, you shouldn’t be able to see a difference in case numbers to be able to say people of this descent are at greater risk for x and less for y. Forensic anthropologists will sometimes use features that are more typically associated with one group or another to try and guess the race of skeletal remains. One thing I read said the nasal opening is slightly different, another one was talking about slight difference in the jaw bones. It isn’t something that is 100%, but is more often used to try to help narrow down to a field of whose bones they’re looking at. Also read that as populations mix more it is something that will be come obsolete.
Re movies- ticket prices range from $5 for just a plain, 2D showing, to $11 for an IMAX 3D showing. Concessions are really bad. Think for a large drink and popcorn it is around $13; it is almost $5 for a large bottle of water. Theaters used to do a cheap show, which was usually shows before a certain time one day a week, but from looking at prices lately I think they did away with that.
With bonus content, commentaries can be interesting in hearing how a certain scene might have changed from the original inception to what is in the final cut, or a funny story that happened while filming, but you can’t have too many people doing one sitting and they have to be polite enough not to talk over each other. Got the movie Accepted on disc because I had liked it when it aired on tv, found the dvd cut to be different enough to be irritating, tried to listen to the commentary and couldn’t get through the whole thing. There were something like six or seven people on one audio track and they were all trying to talk over each other and most of what they were saying didn’t have much to do with the movie. Bloopers and outtakes are other bonus content I enjoy, and sometimes alternate scenes. Also get kick out of any of the ‘making of’ content, but I’m just enough of a movie nerd to be interested of how many different shots was that, was that the stunt double or the actor, how exactly was that blown up, or was that real make up or all CGI – that kind of thing.
Re raining on one side of building- used to see that a lot when I lived in Florida. More often would see it raining on one side of a street and not the other.
Re manzilian wax- it disturbs me anyone would go through with that, but don’t understand why women get all their hair ripped out down there either. I get phantoms pains even thinking about it. If they guys were after a breeze just wear a kilt, guessing all of Norton’s stuffed is taped in the UK anyway. He’s on BBCA over here. Don’t think I’ve ever watched one of his shows before. Keep an eye on who he has on, but it’s just the same people every other talk show over here has on, so who cares? Bit annoyed with BBCA right now. They’ve started making ‘BBCA originals’ which means instead of showing shows from Britain, they’re making stuff here or in Canada and putting it on. Seems to defeat the purpose of having a channel for BBC stuff.
Re malls- there has been a switch over here in the past 5 years or so from indoor malls to outdoor malls. It just doesn’t make sense to me why change over from an environment that you can have so much control over to one that is that is susceptible to the whim’s of nature.
Re consent issue- let’s look at this a different way. You drive your car to your girlfriend’s house, and put the keys down on a counter and start doing something where you’re kind of distracted. Now she has two brothers, one a decent bloke who you don’t care if he drives the car, the other a horrible driver that you have made clear to him under no circumstances he isn’t allowed to drive your car. The irresponsible brother comes through, you’re distracted, he asks if he can take it, you make a noise that he takes as consent even though you were not responding to his question and didn’t even realize someone had asked a question. Would you consider that theft, since he took the car despite knowing it wasn’t his to take or borrow and he claims that you made a noise he took to mean he could take the car?
Re rougher handling- It sounds like without seeing a full transcript of the case it would be difficult to say either way. If rougher sex was typical between the people involved it becomes a different issue than if they were just into vanilla. Kind of shocked about him adding on the ‘don’t forget, women can easily claimed to be raped and it is hard to disprove them’ bit. The rougher handling bit is forgivable in the right context; the fake claims bit not so much.
Re hospital security & guns- that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If they’re already in a hospital it seems like they could get a sedative in the druggie instead of shooting them. Maybe give the security guys tranq guns instead. Even over here I don’t think it would ever fly for a security person in a hospital to shoot someone that came in drugged up unless there was some kind of very extreme circumstance where the druggie was posing a threat to other patients. Don’t think the security person would have a job after that either, even if they were in the right, just because it would be a complete PR nightmare for the hospital.
Re abortion/birth control- Got the Roe v Wade right. Right now morning after pills are causing a fight over here, well more than usual. Law just passed where the pills are supposed to be available on pharmacy shelves not behind the counter and that a girl as young a 15 is allowed to purchase with ID. That has the right up in arms how that encourages sex in young people, lying to parents, and how by allowing young girls to take the pill people are ignoring the “science” that says it is harmful to take at that age. Then there are the people that call morning after pills abortion pills and continue to ignore how biology and the pill actually work. Do see these pills as being better than abortion as a form of birth control, but even these pills don’t always work, and in cases where the pregnancy and the resulting kid isn’t wanted or it is a situation that a kid shouldn’t be in, I’d rather the woman get an abortion that bringing a unwanted kid into the world or bring a kid into a bad situation.
Don’t think Repubs would bother actually changing their views on abortion, they just do their best when the elections come around to say that they are focused on everything but social issues, and then when they get back into office hem and haw over what they claimed they were going to focus on, and instead go after social issues, including women’s health. Still wish we could replace all of the ones in office on both sides right now since they seem to just continue rehashing the same arguments they’ve been doing instead of doing anything useful.
Re dance/gymnastic skits- thought the dance one was kind of blah, the gymnastics one was better
The Mad as Hell interview with Clavis Sinica isn’t coming up – says it’s country blocked, and there are a few clips coming up for Mad as Hell that I can access.
Re flavoured booze- it has been my, admittedly limited, experience that when kids drink, they go for whatever they can get their hands on, whether it is cheap swill that tastes like crap or something more expensive that supposedly is good. If they’re in a house where the adults provide the booze for them they may have more of say in what they get to drink, but otherwise it depends on what is in stock at the store that doesn’t check id. Think the fruit flavoured booze was marketed more to women, because supposedly they are less likely to drink beer and the harder drinks because of the taste.
Now there was a vodka company, think it was either Absolut or Smirnoff, this past holiday season that was advertising a marshmallow flavoured vodka. That I could see as being aimed at teens.
Re classical music- Pachelbel’s Canon in D can get annoying, but still get more out of it that I got out of the Stone Roses song. I do enjoy Vivaldi’s Seasons, some Beethoven, there is a piece I think is called Little Organ Fugue in G minor (can’t remember composer), and several other pieces. Think Brahms is one of the few that I’ve never heard anything I’ve cared for by, but won’t swear to it.
Re Kashmir- Ah, have heard an instrumental version of this as background in probably everything from movie trailers to tv shows to commercials. Can’t decide if I care for the vocals or not.
Re drinking age- has long been an argument about being old enough to go off to war but not old enough to drink. Realistically that becomes not old enough to drink on US soil because I don’t think many other places in the world have that 21 drinking age, so all they have to do is go off base, and read one thing where the drinking age for US military personnel on a US military base on foreign soil becomes the age of that country. Probably the top two reason most cited for keeping the drinking age 21 is a) 21 is the minimum age at which the brain matures, and b) the death rate among young people went down when the drinking age was raised. Honestly there are a lot of times it sounds more like people don’t want to be bothered having to teach their kids responsibility with something else or having to worry about the irresponsibility of another’s kid, and the way some people parent I can understand that better than anything else.
I don’t know why, but I had a laugh that you took the time to do this: @r$#401#$
Re essay length- For most of my uni career the papers were about 1250 words. First couple semesters there were classes that we had to do five papers overall, and each one got longer with the final one having to be I think between 1250 and 1400. Used to get annoyed with how I’d sometimes have a hard time reaching count and be going through the paper seeing what I could reword to get a few extra in.
Re US unemployment- no the 8% is not reliable and probably not accurate. The way it is tallied ignores people that have been out of work for such a long time that unemployment benefits no longer apply, people that have given up looking for work for whatever reason, or the younger college kids that haven’t been able to get a job since graduating and as a result were never on any of the regular lists. There are some surveys that tried to count just certain groups, like the grads, to get numbers, but surveys aren’t the best count.
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re our “mini tornado” being a 3 out of 5 on the EF scale (HUH?)...do you get twisters with that number in the US? Do you call them “mini” or “the real McCoy” tornados in that case? Edit in (26/05 my time): was reading an article in the Hun today...mentioned a big tornado in a sparsely populated region within the last year or something maybe...apparently it was an EF4 and the article said that it was comparable to the Oklahoma tornado of the other week, but that that one was EF5. Anyway, that local tornado was the only one in our state's history to get an EF4 rating. Yesterday, apparently there were some EF3 tornadoes. Noticed that the article did not say "mini tornadoes"! That big one here was travelling at 60 kmph and was spinning at 300 kmph or something like that...heard of a similar speed for the Oklahoma tornado too. The article said that plains are good for tornadoes...where that big tornado here hit was flat...tornado alley in the US is flat land too, right?
re phone numbers...sort of related...licence plates...there’s now a lot more ‘cute’ combinations...I imagine that this would be bothersome for the police in case someone reads a “1” as a “l” or a “0” as an “o” etc.
re video game consoles...you online with your PS2? Pretty sure that it had that ability but curious as to whether it is still supported. Apparently the PSN store or whatever it is called (might be the SEN now or WHATEVER!) might not be the online presence for the new PS4 which comes out later this year, in the US at least. Not sure how that affects me.
re Alpha version of Day Z...had to look up Wiki for that...just over half way down they have entries for alpha and beta. It seems that alpha is less complete than the beta.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development
Without researching this issue beyond what I’ve casually read, my understanding is that Day Z is a mod of ARMAII, a war sim. Think the creator is a New Zealander...adventurer, or military guy or something like that. He’s in the process of making Day Z a stand alone game which will be for sale. Currently you need to own ARMAII to play Day Z. Would think that that would change once the game is for sale in its own right. I thought that you were saying that Day Z was a game that you were interested in? I assumed so. Or did you mean another zombie game? Have heard of The Walking Dead game, which is DLC on PSN I believe. Might have to check that out. It’s sold in instalments...like chapters. Don’t have access to the tv show though. Good Game did review a prequel game to this tv series or something...parallel or whatever...apparently not that good.
re Call Of Duty...seeing as it was so popular, I did recentlyish buy Call Of Duty 4, which is where it became Modern Warfare. I reviewed it at this site...you can check my reviews here if you like. It was okay. Think I played “Soap”, which is an amusing character name!. Since it’s mainly an online game (which I didn’t play), I liked that the game didn’t really care that you beat certain sections of the game...you just respawned where you died and carried on. Some games boot you back to the start of the section or whatever. Not really a FPS kind of guy myself, but of the ones I’ve played and didn’t mind or quite liked include Bioshock, Crysis and Half-Life. In some of those games you can save scum, so if you’re not very good it’s easy to try and progress by reloading or whatever.
Think it was Good Game which recently reviewed “Injustice: Gods among us” and they mentioned that the story aspect to this bad superheroes fighting game is particularly good. For some reason I do watch a few gaming shows...didn’t realise that community tv had so many of these shows! Just discovered another one recently. They’re pretty lo-fi though.
As for games with stories...enjoyed Mass Effect 2 on PS3. Bought that on the basis that the maker would not be releasing the first on that platform. So, I bought the first game on the 360 disc...even though I don’t have an XBox! Also bought the sequel and a few other XBox games too. Anyway, bought the 3rd and final ME game. Then the company brought out the ME trilogy. They’re not releasing the original game on disc though (yet). So, bought the trilogy for the first game. Man, those companies suck! I have 2 x 2 copies of ME2 and ME3, plus a copy of each for XBox! For frack’s sake! Not sure if you remember that Comedy Company sketch I linked to ages ago...for “Bastards Incorporated”...I think the makers of the Mass Effect series are a subsidiary of them! Bought the trilogy because the download for the original game would be at least 12 Gb...and on mobile internet that’s about another $100 for the capacity to get it. Sheesh.
re Ouya tv or whatever it is called...look, I’m no expert, but maybe you should check out a new "Steam box" console type device. Steam are a major online gaming company and often they have heavily discounted games (probably not to Australians though...Bastards Inc.). No idea what kind of games Ouya will have, but Steam is a MAJOR gaming company.
Did a cursory search for the Steam console...I think any company will be able to manufacture one, so the costs mentioned in the link below (which sound horrific) might not be the last word:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2416457,00.asp
Okay, glanced at the following article which is for DIY Steam Box which costs about half the off the shelf variety, above:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/what-we-learned-while-building- our-steam-box/
or if my constant editing breaks the link:
http://bit.ly/YCNcj6
re guns...saw maybe on ABC TV over here a story about the NRA. The Australian reporter asked many at the convention or whatever what they thought of the security checks on purchases or whatever it was. They all said they were in favour of it. Which is in sharp contrast to the people who supposedly represent them...all were against that. That’s a bit weird...bit of a disconnect between the leadership and the members (although I have to concede that the crowd’s response was covered scientifically or anything). Btb, I caught some of an earlier programme I pvrd and they mentioned that banks here - in the 1970s, I think - used to have armed tellers. Probably/maybe just in one state though. The tellers would have a shooting competition with the police and...the tellers won a few in a row or something! Hmm. Oh, I did learn that John Stewart’s Daily Show had their Brit reporter do a story on gun control and Australians were interviewed...interesting re different politics at play...don’t think I’ve seen the 3rd part, if it exists yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pOiOhxujsE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYbY45rHj8w
re getting guns off backwoods populace...from my point of view you wouldn’t search every house. You’d just make ownership illegal and ping anyone who the police come to find out has a gun...i.e. the person commits a crime or something. If a husband waves a gun at his wife in a domestic dispute, that’s another thing you can charge him with etc.
re nude toddler shots...story in the paper today...a grand dad took his daughter to the beach and she took off her clothes and had a ball. Someone complained and the grand dad’s details and the child’s were taken. Not sure how the girl took that. Maybe it’s kind of our equivalent to the witch scares of centuries ago?
re race differences...might not that be environmental differences? E.g. if Snow White moved to the equator her descendants would end up becoming darker skinned (I mean even without her shacking up with a black man!). I do remember learning that mixing genes is good...provides great defences...e.g. the proof of that is in incestuous populations...where they may be prone to a disease and all may be in danger as a consequence...hmm...maybe that proves your point...I dunno.
re movie prices...hmm, cheap Tuesday is around $11.50 a ticket, I think. So, the regular ticket price might be around $16 or $18...not sure...as I’m a tight arse! I.e. watch movies on Tuesdays. The international comedy festival here even advertises for “Tight arse Tuesday” tickets, I think...I think that that is the day which is cheap. First shows may be cheap too...while the comedian beds down their show.
You mentioned the price of a water at the flix...new show I watch here which covers consumer affairs, with some of the talent of The Chaser (I’ve linked to their stuff before here...e.g. lounge version of a death metal song, vox pop with ‘stupid’ Americans etc...satirical stuff) and a girl from The Hungry Beast...think I linked to one thing that they did...stuff on malls and how they manipulate you into buying stuff? Forget. Oh well, can’t find a clip of some ridiculously priced water bottles over here...viewers submitted pictures...on fallible memory, I think one place was selling water for between $18 to $28...and remember, the Australian dollar is currently worth more than your dollar, by a little bit at the moment. Oh, found it...probably won’t play though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAAndMioj0Q
If you can’t see it, they had the ‘winner’ as a Sydney restaurant charging $15 for a large bottle of water...works out to $2 per 100 mL. Hopefully I won’t forget to return to this show later on.
re bonus content commentary...occasionally it’s interesting but wouldn’t want to sit through two hours of a movie again and have the most scintillating titbit be something about the lamp shade in a certain scene...which may actually have happened to me! Many movies do have alternate scenes though. E.g. I liked the spider walk in The Exorcist but I think there’s another version of the movie with some hokey subliminal flashes which did nothing for me. Not on the same disc mind. So, it might be tough working out WHICH version of the movie to buy. Same goes for Blade Runner. Maybe there’s even more than one director’s cut? Not sure if I’ve seen all versions though. Think I’ve linked to Fast Forward sketches here before. They used to to parodies of bloopers...actually, so long ago I can’t remember...maybe actual bloopers at the end...which seemed fake...as in they were so slight I didn’t think they were worth including.
re Norton...I’d only watch him passing but now that he’s on commercial tv I don’t watch him at all...except in passing...hmm...nothing much has changed except I’m less likely to see him as I’m more of an ABC person (non commercial). The ABC now has another gay English chat show programme to replace Norton. Hmm. Is that a job prerequisite in the UK? Both are camp...not as camp as Julian Cleary though...another ABC import. Think I watched Cleary more though...years ago though.
Did read in the tv guide here that there’s a US remake of the UK’s House Of Cards...bit of a novelty in that it was bought by an online service and the entire series is available to view at once. Stars Kevin Spacey. Never saw the original. Hmm...not sure if I watched Edge Of Darkness at the time but did watch the US movie with Mel Gibson starring. The original UK series was aired again on the ABC and...hmm...really odd scene of the father of the dead woman kissing her dildo. Meant to be poignant I assume. The Gibson movie had a different vibe to it though...more Hollywood.
re malls...I thought that outdoor malls were first? I.e. so they’d be making a comeback in the US then, right? re indoor v outdoor malls...I’d say that outdoor malls are smaller, so not exactly a complete threat to the indoor malls, I’d guess. Anyway, think I’ve mentioned before that pretty much all the shops here are franchises...everywhere you go it’s Maccas, Subway, Gloria Jeans, blah blah blahdy blah. Diversity is good. We don’t have that, I don’t think.
re consent issue and car analogy...I’m sure that the lawyer for the guy who took the car keys could argue that he thought consent had been given! There’s probably been cases like this in any case...not sure how they played out. I’m not saying that a wrong hasn’t been done in the case of an interloper having sex with another man’s wife, it’s just that I think the notion of consent in this case is problematic and maybe another term might need to be used.
Since your example mentioned car keys, I did want to link to a sketch on a watchable new Australian sketch show...it does have Monty Python like parts and since I can't find their sketch re the swingers' key party or whatever you call it, I'll just link to one of their Pythonesque bits...I enjoyed the one on their series finale but can't find that online either:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DfheTCh-2s
It's not a hilarious show but it does have an emphasis on the awkward, like that swingers' key party sketch.
re rougher than usual handling...not researching this at all, I think the notion was that it was okay to be handle the woman in a rougher than usual manner in order to get her to consent to sex, not that the sex was rougher than usual...he’s talking about a method to get her consent. Interesting that you raise the fake rape claims made by the judge. Recently over here there was a story which I glanced at re police calling off investigations into an alleged rape by a teenage girl, I think. Seems she fabricated it...pack rape, from memory. I’m sure that it does happen. Sometimes due to nastiness, sometimes due to stupidity, sometimes due to craziness. Maybe that teen girl was somewhere in the last two categories. You do need to find a balance though in how the court deals with these though...you want to make sure that the evidence stacks up. I think some Islamic countries require that there be witnesses to a victim’s claim of rape. Hmm. And of course, over here, I’m sure that there used to be the notion that a woman was dressing ‘provocatively’ which implied that she was ‘asking for it’. I’m guessing that these notions aren’t really in play in the courts any more.
re druggies in hospitals over here and armed guards called for...I think I read that a nurse in one hospital had some of her breast bitten off by such a person. So, if that is what they’re dealing with, I suppose I would be okay with armed guards her...not sure you really could tranq such a person easily. Maybe I’m getting confused too...was a story about how hospitals crowded here and patients getting aggro...maybe the breast bit was to do with that, in which case I’d agree with you re not being desirable to shoot these people! But obviously, you’d need to do something. Remember The Roast clip I posted? That 2 minute news satire? You said you liked it. It’s now 10 minutes long...not so keen on the new form. Anyway, last week they did a bit on one state’s method of dealing with nurses...I think it was on The Roast...an actress playing a nurse had to explain poor service to a patient without mentioning the state government, funding cuts and whatever...which pretty much meant she had to take the blame herself...it seems the state government actually did forbid nurses from using those words or something.
re you wanting to replace Republicans because of their social views...over here we have half senate elections, I believe...so you can vote in only half of the senate...which might mean that the other half no longer reflects community views. Do you have something similar in the US, or can you sweep everybody out come election day?
re dance/gymanstic sketches...think I showed you the dance one ages ago and you liked it...could be wrong. I like the dancers’ dagginess...like your uncool aunt and uncle or mum and dad embarrassing themselves. The gymnastic one was, I think, more a reflection on the quality of Australia’s gymnasts...never really a strong suit of ours, like winter Olympics. Ha! Which reminds me...you heard of Steve Bradbury? He might have been Australia’s first gold medal winner in the ice skating racing. All his competitors fell over. I think Americans had conniptions about that! Like he wasn’t a worthy winner...I’m sure I would have riled up Americans by saying that you need to stay on your feet to win the gold! That’s actually a thing now “Doing a Bradbury”. Oh...found a clip...watching it and listening to Steve’s comments, you realise that he actually did have a strategy...which worked...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z6GnUTVAF0
It’s a pity you couldn’t view that Shaun Micallef ‘interview’ with their Chinese correspondent over China’s departing and new leaders Wen and Hu. It’s a classic, even though it does draw on (more successfully, in my view), stuff by Abbot and Costello (no, not the budgie smuggler aka Mr. Speedos). Was browsing the You Tube and saw Micallef’s acceptance speech for our version of the Emmys...not sure if you’d like it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6g6gb0wRu0
Have tried other search engines for a non ABC version of that Wen and Hu sketch with no luck. Oh well. Just take my word for it that it was funny! His new show isn’t as good as his older ones in my opinion, but that was just great. Many of his sketches are also character based (I mean his other actors’ roles and more local).
edit in: this probably won't work either, but here's a link to his official website which has clips from the show...I can't link directly to the Wen and Hu sketch...you'll have to try and find it in the list of clips:
"Wen and Hu
Wednesday, 13 March"
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/madashell/webextras/
re Canon in D...so, it’s not repetitive music in general which you dislike, just the Stone Roses song in particular? There are quite a few repetitive pieces which I like, including the Stone Roses one...but not really exposed to it much...only recently been hearing it on Triple M, a classic/modern rock station which is now sounding more like a station for old hipsters. Only heard the Stone Roses album with that song earlier this year, but it’s from the 90s, I think. Generally regarded as a classic album, I think...although that song might be a new bonus track or something.
re Kashmir...think I browsed a music magazine recently which interviewed Eric Clapton and he said he wasn’t into Plant’s vocals...I think. Clapton did say that he thought by quitting that kind of music that kind of music would die, but that Zeppelin kept it going. I quite like Plant’s vocals although his sexualised moaning in “Whole lotta love” does bug me. Might check out his album with bluegrass American singer Allison Krauss, I think her name is. More rootsy. Seems to be a lot of revisionism with Zeppelin...apparently Rolling Stone were cold on them and the band released their untitled 4th album to show that people weren’t buying their records because of their name...the album had no words on it at all or pictures of the band. It’s an all time classic classic rock album in my view. I do find them rootsy though, as a whole...don’t really see how they have their status as a great classic rock band...only one album fits that bill, imo, IV.
re “I don’t know why, but I had a laugh that you took the time to do this: @r$#401#$”
hey, it’s been a quiet year! It’s in the same spirit as the boy who came up with the number 90095 on his calculator...hmm...don’t have a calculator on me...hopefully I got that right! Maybe it’s 59009? I think it might be!
re your essay lengths...seems really short. Sort of related...it really bugs me that when I submit movie reviews here, which have a 1,000 word limit, I’ll paste it into Word and be under the limit but this website somehow counts words differently, so I have to cut a slab out of my review in order to get it submitted.
Back to The Checkout. Interesting story last week. Have you heard of permeates? See if you can view the clips in this link:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/thecheckout/clips/
The relevant one here is the one for Mil
[Gosh, didn't realise I lost some text in creating a part 2 (before the "P.S." below)...good thing I backed up my original reply elsewhere!)
Back to The Checkout. Interesting story last week. Have you heard of permeates? See if you can view the clips in this link:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/thecheckout/clips/
The relevant one here is the one for Milk, White Lies & Permeate.
Check out the start of the one for A Load of Rubbish. Just for the bit about Apple’s system.
Also found the story on “Superfoods” interesting too...especially how the “Doctor” promoting one such brand got their ‘PhD’ online!
P.S. I remember us discussing "schoolies' week" over here...re that student sleeping on the outside window cill of a high rise apartment! Saw a review for a new US movie over here called "Spring breakers". Not sure if you mentioned that American term before, but that seems to be the US equivalent of "Schoolies' week". Over here, schoolies has a reputation for attracting old perves and now maybe older guys just spoiling for a fight with the drunk boys or whatever.
P.P.S. saw that story on that huge twister in the US the other day. There was an ABC reporter from our network over there doing some interviews in the aftermath. Reminded me of that stuff I was saying about stilts in flood prone areas over here...he mentioned that the schools that were flattened had not safe rooms and the houses didn't have basements. Just seemed as odd to me as the stilts free homes over here in flood prone areas.
Was looking beforehand at The Checkout's own website for the following clip, which I found at You Tube...not sure if both sites are blocked for you or not...if you can see this, then I thought it might be helpful to you if you are considering having kids!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X48sIeuyW34
Words: 3,699 (with overlap between 1st and last post)
You can't create a post without a body
Re tornadoes- EF scale attempts to rate the tornados’ wind speed, usually using damage data to estimate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Fujita_scale
Tornado Alley is pretty much all plain land in the middle of the US. Some old maps I remember seeing used to include Florida, but I think the images that were coming up now had taken Florida off. Tornado science is still developing and they’re trying to figure out how they form exactly, but one thing I remember reading/hearing was that a main way a tornado forms is winds on the ground get kind of tumbling over each other and then a wind from the opposing direction hits it just right causing the rolling winds to shift vertically and some how spin into a tornado. The flatter the land the easier it is for the ground winds to roll along to produce monsters, but there have been some tornadoes out east in the past few years in areas that aren’t very flat, so don’t know how accurate that theory is. Plus they now use radar to look at opposing winds in the clouds to look for tornado development and will issue warnings based on cloud winds, though eye sight still seems to be the most accurate way to spot tornadoes.
Re plate numbers- hate trying to tell the difference between a 0 and an o on a plate. Some states over here have groupings on their plates, i.e. two sets of 3 characters (such as 351 NBX) and some of them I think have it set up where one side is numbers and the other side letters, but then there are the states that just have one long string, which I know California has. Then there are the custom plates that you just have to guess what it is.
Re PS2- Never got online with the PS2. At the time I was using it most the online stuff for the consuls was just really starting to get going and the consuls had to be connected with wires to the net connection and where my consul was set up vs where the internet connection was it just wasn’t feasible. Don’t know if they ever came out with an adapter to connect wirelessly to the net for the PS2 or if mine would have even supported it. Doubt I would have used it much even if I did connect it. I know the Dreamcast could have connected but I got that so late don’t know if the online server was still running. Picked it up I think as the inventory was being liquidated from stores and Sega was getting out of the consul business.
Re Day Z- was more interested in the idea of having to get through a game where you couldn’t scrum save. This was the first time I had heard of a game like that, and it was just mentioned in an article I’d read. Realistically I’m so far behind on what is current in gaming anymore I don’t know if I’d ever catch up again.
Re gaming box- I could see me trying to build a gaming box. Probably either electrocute myself or blow the circuits in the house. Sadly, it seems like the next big electronic expense is going to have to be a new computer. Still works for basic typing stuff, but when trying to watch vids online or doing much with graphics it starts making some very funny noises. Have always had a bit of a heating issue, and it is either something related to that or something that was damaged prior from the heat. Don’t really want to shell out for it and going to try out for awhile yet, but I’m guessing within a year or so at best. Seven years is pretty good, anymore, I guess.
Re gun control- The John Stewart show proves why nothing is going to be done about guns: crazy people who can’t see any reason to give up their guns and politicians that care only about being re-elected (though that second point tends to be why absolutely nothing is getting done in US government right now). Don’t even think the American that John Oliver was talking to realized he was being mocked for most of the interview. If you are interested, this is the third part of the segment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_651832&featu re=iv&src_vid=TYbY45rHj8w&v=mVuspKSjfgA
Found this story that I think characterizes which direction the US is heading for the foreseeable future in regards to guns.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/08/free-guns-houston_n_3408632.h tml
re race differences – “might not that be environmental differences? E.g. if Snow White moved to the equator her descendants would end up becoming darker skinned (I mean even without her shacking up with a black man!).”
If that true were the descendants of the white Europeans that moved to Africa when they were still colonies would be black, and they’re not, at least not without someone shacking up with a native African. Likewise the descendants of Chinese immigrants that moved to the Americas in the 1800s are still clearly of Chinese descent unless there has been mixing somewhere in the line, and the Europeans that moved to Latin America didn’t start to look like the locals.
Gene variety is better at more than just having a good immune system. There is something about when people or animals that are too closely related keep breeding that physical and mental problems can occur more often, like ones people are born with. Saw docu getting on several years ago where some people were following a group of lions that were mostly cut off from other lions and the inbreeding was due to kill them out I think it was a handful of generations. Though read that sometimes when a population of animals gets cut off from an outside source of new animals that nature will sometimes weed out the sickest of the resulting inbred and if the pressures are enough a new species will emerge. Granted that species can be very fragile and one wrong thing could kill them all off.
Re water price- the $2 per 100mL is absurd. Is pure glacier water they’re serving? Think the average around here is about $3.50USD for 500mL bottle. Most places you go if you just say you want water they’ll give you a cup and you can get some for free; only charge if you ask for bottle water. Lot of sit down restaurants used to always have a glass of water sitting on the table for you, for free, but think most have done away with that now because of how few people actually drank them and the cost of having to wash all the unused glasses.
Re different movie cuts- Haven’t bought any different cuts of movies yet, i.e. owning original cut and then buying a Director’s cut. On some dvds I have in the extras section they’re extended scenes, which can be annoying to watch without being in context, or alternate endings that again aren’t necessarily attached to the rest of the movie, so you need to already know what is going on. There is a tv show that I own the dvd for that it was a show where they went to different out of the way places looking into cryptid reports and stuff was always going wrong. Some of it they showed in the show, but didn’t have time to show all of it and in the commentaries you’d get stories of different problems that happened.
Re malls- Over here malls were originally indoors. Their predecessor were downtown shopping districts where there might be a store on the first floor or two and then offices above, but I don’t know if it was the deal where a bunch of stores were in an area or if they were still really spread out. From what I’ve heard and looking at some of the old buildings they tended to be a bit more spread out. The outdoor malls of today aren’t downtown, though some downtown areas are trying to come back, and focused on just being retail locations without the random offices above or anything, and with the way the economy went if the outdoor mall is smaller (which I don’t think it is) they still have problems filling all their spaces. And it is a threat to the indoor malls here. There were two indoor ones here that over the past 10 years lost all the stores in them except for maybe one big retail giant. The one was recently knocked down and the other is now slated for demolition either later this year or early next year.
Re cross training comedy sketch- for the entire clip my thoughts “weren’t his feet nailed down too?” Yeah, I’m not all right in the head.
Re judge’s fake rape comment- I think it was the way it was said that was a WTH deal cause I understand there are the fake allegations, but it needs to be done tactfully, and if the case has gone to court there has probably been more evidence leaning toward real vs fake.
Re druggies in hospital- there is a bit of an attitude over here that dealing with all that $h*! goes with the territory of working in an ER setting or paramedic, especially in bigger city where drugs are more prevalent. Yes it is a crap attitude to have, but it is the idea you signed up for this so deal with it. Might be that we just expect hospitals to fix anything wrong physically and if something goes wrong it is always their fault. Can understand the nurse wanting the armed guards if they’ve got patients coming in that messed up.
Re elections- we have staggered elections over here for the Senate. We have 100 senators, 2 to each state, and every two years a third of the seats goes up for election, so each senator serves 6 years before s/he campaigns for the seat again. The other half of Congress, the House of Representatives, has 435 people and all the seats go up for election every two years.
It isn’t just the Republicans I want out of there, it is everyone. As said in the John Stewart video you linked, no one wants to risk anything that will result in them not being re-elected – and that was an aid to a Democratic senator saying that.
Re Bradbury win- like one of the people said, he was the only one to stay on his feet. Don’t know if I could be fully happy with a medal won like that. It was other people’s mistakes that got him into the finals and other people’s mistakes that got him gold. On one hand it would feel good to win, but on the other…. sort of like winning a contest because no other entry bothered to read the rules and the other entrants were disqualified.
Re Micallef’s award speech- have to give him points for the original idea of reusing an old speech, and better than most of them I’ve heard. Few times I’ve watched award shows it seems like people are just rattling off a bunch of names until the music starts to tell them to leave.
Success! The Wen and Hu clipped worked. Wonder how many times something like that happened in real life?
Re 59009 on calculator- think half my freshman year of high school were guys coming up with dirty words on the calcs, and trying to beat the games (we had to get the graphing calcs and there were 4 games standard and then you could program some in yourself. Think one or two actually did.)
Re The Checkout - hadn’t heard of permeate before, and if I had I blew it off. Sounds to me like the milk companies are probably happy to advertise permeate free – one less process the milk has to go through to get the shelves should make it cheaper to produce, and don’t know about over there, but over here the supposed healthier stuff that doesn’t have stuff added (or put back in this case) to it is usually more expensive.
With the Load of Rubbish, had been hearing about this forever. Why did Gram’s water heater last 30 years and our last one lasted about 10? With computers I can understand to a degree people updating to a newer model even if the old one still technically works because the old one may turn on and you can type a document or print something, but can it handle the graphic demands when you go online? Or does it have enough memory space to deal with the latest update for the web browser or Word or any other number of programs that are constantly updating anymore? Mentioned earlier I think I’m going to have to replace mine, even though the very basics work. Have done some early looking and noticed that Apple’s new retina laptops the battery compartment sealed in a way similar to their ipods and iphones. The non-retina display is still accessible by the consumer. Doubt non retina will stick around for very long because of that.
Guilty Moms- over here they’re known as helicopter parents. Watch and control the kid’s movements obsessively. The GPS unit on the kid I can see having a use if you’re in a public place like a park where the kid might be out of your sight, and if someone tries to kidnap the kid you can follow. Might not be the original intent of the product but in today’s society I can see where it could be a good thing. I just wonder with some of these parents what their childhood was like. Grew up with metal and wood playgrounds and woodchips as ground covering and was never seriously injured. We got cuts and scrapes, had them tended to and then went back out. Remember one time I was running down the hill in front of our house, tripped on the sidewalk, concrete scrapped it up and I walked back into our house, up to the second story, got it washed out and bandaged and was back out playing – after changing pants since they had gotten ruined.
Re lack of basements- In some of the plain areas they have external cellars, which don’t make much sense to me since you have to go out of the house to access them. There are a lot of newer homes that they build without basements because it is cheaper and they can put them up faster. Living in this area I don’t think I’d ever move into a house without one because of the twisters. It’s like not having 4-wheel drive on a car in an area that gets snow – just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Most schools in tornado areas don’t have specific shelter areas, some because of age, some due to cost, and I’m sure a number of other reasons. Around here we always went into the hallways and scrunched down. In the one building in high school one of the hallways we went to had a glass trophy case right across from a set of doors that were half a level below, and due to the number of people there were people that had to crouch in front of those. Luckily we never had to seriously take shelter when I was there.
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When I get around to posting this I’m going to attempt to reply to an earlier post (hmm...might have to scrap that as it doesn’t seem that our replies are getting more and more indented as we go on...that only happens some times...for some reason). Have you noticed the changes at IMDB? Can’t say that I like them. Now the default view is Nest which means looking at your reply as displayed in that mode makes it look like a newspaper column! I.e. one in which there are 3 or 4 columns. Can only imagine what that would like if we had consistently replied to every previous post! Don’t think that we’ve done that though, have we? I prefer Thread view. Also, now when you look at your profile page with its posting history of your posts, it’s like the entire post history you’re looking at is one hyperlink! Guessing that site has badly implemented...whatever it was trying to do with that!
Did think of editing in a story I saw on tv in my previous post re tornados. Not sure how you reply to my posts...do you make a copy of it and reply at your leisure? Or do you always see an edits I’ve made, no matter how late? Anyway, there was an excellent story on the openining episode of Catalyst (a show I don’t religiously watch...when it was called Quantum I was probably more of a regular viewer, as to its predecessor too, Towards 2000 (I think that that original series got overseas buyers or were done by overseas companies for their own markets...not sure if the US did too...think when Towards 2000 left the ABC it later became Beyond 200 (for obvious reasons!). ANYWAY...Catalyst had a story on a phenomenon discovered in Australia...fire tornados! That’s FREAKIN’ fires PLUS a FREAKIN’ tornado! There’s an excellent visualisation of how they form...perhaps the same principles apply to the common, garden variety tornado too? It demonstrates how the circular winds get vertical into the famous funnel formation. It seems to me that Australia does indeed have tornados as yous would understand them...however, the terminology used here “mini-tornados” just made me think otherwise...maybe the journalists writing these stories were hedging their terminology in case they weren’t ‘actual’ tornados or something? Let me know if this link doesn’t work for the story:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3774941.htm
That link has the transcript too, but I’d suggest you view the clip instead, for the animation of the formation of the fire tornado...didn’t I use a comedian’s quote for you re fish sticks? I.e. “All the goodness of a fish...on a stick!”...to paraphrase...all the goodness of a fire...in a tornado! If you’re a dog person I’d also suggest you watch Catalyst’s 3rd story on dog empathy. We also discussed here how your tin foil hatted survivalists would outlive us come a doomsday scenario because they’re not afraid to eat ‘icky’ stuff which we (or at least I would!) would baulk at eating. The 2nd story (all from the ep of 06/06) covered how humans could do the planet a favour by making better use of insects for food (not necessarily by US eating them!).
re rego numbers...I wonder how much of a problem it is for the police if you get mixed numbers and letters...e.g. if “o” and “0” can appear anywhere on the plate, might that not make tracking suspects down harder? Same goes for “l” and “1”, I suppose. The topic of rego plates has made the news here in the past week (writing this on 13/06). Apparently are convention of lllnnn (i.e. letter x3 number x3) is all used up or about to be. So, our state is introducing a new format, which should be good for 50 million uses, apparently...the new format is nllnll. The site where I got that info linked to a source which mentioned that the body here had considered reversing the current system so it would be nnnlll...like you say some US states have.
re online play etc. Did read something on Slate today which mentioned that the PS4 will work with the PSN (used for the PS3). I’m still playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown (chasing a damned Platinum trophy...did myself no favours by deleting my profile save because it counted me as playing the game more times than I actually had...which is basically forcing me to complete the game more times than I would have in order to get that last damned trophy which will give me my Platinum!). Anyway, I downloaded DLC for that game...one I never use (to do with being able to colour your soldiers’ uniforms) and other one being bonus missions...which is now part of the game. PSN was also a live saver for me...my hard drive carked it and if it wasn’t for my online game saves etc. I would have lost all my game achievements etc. So, in that sense I find online aspects useful. Good to know that they won’t be ditching that and creating something new for the PS4.
re Day Z and lack of scum saving appealing to you...technically XCOM:EU has that in “Ironman” mode...but you can subvert it (by quitting the game before you end your turn). Many people report problems in that mode on the hardest mode especially...and they choose to do a virtual Ironman game...i.e. saving at the end of their turn or the aliens (I suspect) but if the game plays silly buggers with them (which it can do) they can reload their previous save. I’m playing a virtual Ironman game now...but cheating...my excuse is chasing that Platinum trophy! I did buy cheap games like Demon’s Souls and its spiritual ‘sequel’ Dark Souls. These games are meant to be crushingly difficult...it’s unforgiving...expect to die...a lot...and you lose any progress you’ve made since your last save spot (i.e. you can’t save anywhere you like...you need to do that at certain locations). Yet to play those games. The guy on Good Game did say the great feeling of accomplishment you get when you do beat the game...demons which once crushed you easily become easy to beat once you get accomplished at the game. Good Game reviewed The Last Of Us this week. It’s a zombie kind of game. The review mentioned that the threat in that game is based on a real world thing...something to do with fungi, I think...they mentioned You Tubing that actual thing in action...think I’ve heard of that before...a fungi which affects ants etc...they ingest it, then the fungi grows in their head and bursts out of it! Not sure if it’s the same thing or not, but really intriguing...an ant will eat a fungus or whatever and it affects their behaviour...they climb grass shoots or tall plants etc...which makes them prime targets for predators, like birds...which is how the fungus or whatever continues its life cycle. Hmm...reminds me, playing Half Life on PS2 (once I get a PC I want to get Black Mesa, which is a re-do of that game...a mod...HD visuals apparently)...there were humans in that game which looked for all the world like they had roast chickens over their heads! Sorta similar to the fungus thing, I assume. Anyway, since you mentioned liking story in a game, here’s the review for that TLOU game:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/stories/s3779177.htm
I’ll probably get the game...once it’s cheap! Browsing briefly in a games store I noticed a disc of The Walking Dead episodes. Good Game have probably reviewed that in the past. From memory it was mentioned that there are quick time events which sort of cuts scum savers out of the loop, I think...you have only a few seconds to react to an event and then it continues depending on what you did (or didn’t do). It’s meant to have a good story to it or good stor telling.
I’m also way behind in gaming but that has the advantage of saving me money as I play catch up! I could probably even delay buying a PS4 for another year or two! Actually, I was thinking of going with XBox One this gen, but that Slate article mentioning the PS4 being more gamer friendly...XBox One is always online and I think restricts on your ability to trade games (not that I ever do that though). Will probably get the XBox 360 soon...should be dirt cheap with loads of games thrown in...do have some XBox 360 games with no console to play them on at the moment!
re getting a new computer...I think I mentioned The Age’s Green Guide writer Charles Wright here before (he has a column called “Bleeding edge”). He should be writing his Quarterly Workhorse PC piece for the end of June...maybe wait for that? If you live near a uni which stocks foreign newspapers, maybe look out for the Thursday edition of The Age...first week of July, I’d say...or maybe see if you can buy the article online. He gives specs for a workhorse PC which includes the price of assembly. Usually the PCs are around the grand mark or so. Last quarter he mentioned holding off until Intel’s new chips come out. They would be out now. He also suggests replacement parts for people who want to game on their PC. But check out PC mags too...don’t know if you get these titles over there or not: PC World, PC Authority, Atomic. Generally I think that they all have a regular page where they give you specs for variously priced PCs...Atomic has one for The Beast...think I’ve seen a price of $24k for that, but sane people wouldn’t buy everything in that...e.g. a $6k odd video projector as a monitor! I read today in The Green Guide (Garry Barker’s Mac Man column) that Apple is releasing new hardware and OS now through to September, I believe...improved performance etc.
I don’t have a PC myself but should be in the market for one soon. One reason I haven’t bought a PC is because there is always something new and improved coming around the corner. With Intel’s new chip, now is probably the best time to commit. Apparently the top of the line chip ‘adequately’ plays games...presumably so long as you don’t max out the settings...e.g. ultra-high definition gaming or whatnot...middling graphics will run on it alright, in other words.
One thing I want to have for the PC I get is a dedicated sound card. I like listening to music and the onboard sound cards apparently don’t do high quality music justice. Did read that Asus’ Phoebus sound card (or whatever it was called) was the best. One high performance PC store/assembler mentioned M Audio and reading customer reviews that sounds great too...one guy mentioned hearing the sounds of silence with his volume at full capacity but nothing playing...which is a good thing...you don’t want to hear hissing! Also read that previous top dog in off the shelf sound cards Creative Audio (I think they are called) has a sound card out now which is better than the Asus...but the PC mag suggested not to buy it until the bugs are fixed...more than one graphics card apparently mucks things around with the sound after the product was updated. Unfortunately two companies which assemble PCs didn’t stock some or all of these superior sound cards.
Speaking of always something better around the corner...NVIDIA released a single card graphics card called the Titan...selling for around $1200 apparently! It’s the fastest single GPU on the market...of course, what’s around the corner would be 2 of them on the same card...which is bound to happen. PC mags say that something like the Titan is for people with more money than sense...if you want the fastest gaming card, you can get something faster than the single GPU Titan...i.e. x2 graphics card on one card (or however the Hell you say what I’m trying to say!). Something like that might be around half the price of the Titan. But apparently the Titan is more future proof. One more thing...recently read in a PC magazine something about an app or something which NVIDIA has...think it’s crowd sourced for the following, but what it does is detect what your PC has and optimises your settings in order to play games to their best on it...i.e. not necessarily at the highest theoretically possible settings...just what your PC is capable of delivering. The reviewers said that it worked alright. Just mentioning stuff like this because you say you want a new PC? Or did you say you already got one? The bleeding edge kind of PCs might not be for you especially if you don’t have monitors which bleeding edge gamers play on...screens with at least double the resolution of Full HD monitors...at least 2,560 x 1,600 resolution (or whatever it is...Googled it...seems to be right...someone mentioned 2560 x 1900 though...not sure about that. Just btb, some months ago I noticed a bargain priced ultra high defintion tv set...at just under $16,000! That’s 4k resolution...i.e. 3840 × 2160). If I assemble my own PC via a company, I did read of a good motherboard...think it’s called the Sniper or something (Googled it...seems to be by Gigabyte)...allows room to add more graphics cards which can keep your PC fast or adequate into the future. Hmm...I’m boring you, aren’t I? And I don’t even know exactly what I’m talking about!
Thanks for that 3rd part of the John Stewart segment...not sure why I couldn’t find it when I last posted...I think the segment would have been done and dusted even by them. Ninja police.
re race differences...is half a millenium really enough time to have different human species or whatever develop? re why white colonists not black now despite living in Africa or whatever. Maybe it would take millenia for whites to turn black because of climate? A former English cricket captain said that the upcoming Ashes series between our two nations could not be described as a clash of cultures because that would imply that Australia had culture (Rrrow!). Personally, I wouldn’t think that Australians or Americans are distinct enough from their colonisers to be different...one culture, in other words. That English cricket captain, David Gower was described by one cricket commentator during a match as being “So relaxed as to be comatose”. I’d say to Gower “How many Nobel Literature prizes and Pulitzer prizes for literature did William Shakespeare receive? How many such prizes have Australians won?” POW! IN YOUR FACE DAVID GOWER!!
re genetic diversity...hmm, Darwin has his “survival of the fittest” maxim...I would think that genetic diversity is good not because the species is equivalent to body builders or something, just that they are adaptable...if all the body builder types were susceptible to a certain kind of death or whathaveyou, then the more bookish types could continue on the species, for instance. Not sure if what Darwin says is incompatible with that...I suspect not.
re water at restaurants...I think it’s standard to have it complimentary but maybe nightclubs really try it on by selling you tap water at an exorbitant price...have read that music festivals do do that. Don’t really go to places where they charge for water.
re different movie cuts...not sure what you mean by “cryptid reports”. Ages ago Australian sketch shows would have ‘goofs’ at the end of the programme...to me it looked fake. Similarly, I went to a Reduced Shakespeare Company show and got a laugh out their mistakes...when I saw the show again a short while later they had...the same ‘mistakes’ again. Hmm. Seems like a guaranteed laugh...make a genuine mistake in your show which gets a laugh and...repeat it for a guaranteed laugh in future shows! Blade Runner has multiple cuts. Was emailing one American guy who swore that the Ford character was not an android...I mentioned something which I had read which was supposed to assert that he was. The director made a cut where those who deny Decker was an android had nothing to cling to...he made his androidness explicit (perhaps subtly, as I forget). Not sure if mentioned The Exorcist...I really disliked the cut where you get a subliminal flash of a ghost like face in that...really spoils the movie in my view. Not sure if the ‘spider walk’ was in the same cut, but I didn’t mind that...be good if you could mix and match elements of different cuts to make something ‘definitive’ for you.
re malls, it seems now that new tall buildings often have mixed use...residential, offices and things like convenience stores or cafes. Not sure if you’d count the ye olde High St. as the precursor to malls. Have been reading how the shopping centre business model is struggling now...the owners charged an arm and a leg to tenants but now have to compromise in order to keep shops afloat. I.e. they charge less rent now. I know that at least one Australian company has a presence in the US with malls. Hmm...do remember something about Australia having crazy prices for both residential and business...one fashion store, I think, closed their Sydney shop or whatever and moved to New York...for CHEAPER rent! AND more exposure to passing traffic. Pretty sure it was in a fashionable address too! It seems to me that in Australia at least we have a housing bubble. One of the most expensive places in the world, for some reason...probably including government handouts/incentives to speculators instead of catering to people who have yet to buy their first house...baby boomers being courted for votes as opposed to people starting out.
re Jesus’ feet surely being nailed down...gosh, are you always so literal? I think some people can be so literal they have no sense of humour (not putting you in that category)...i.e. it isn’t funny if it isn’t plausible. Actually, I did have one high school teacher seem to doubt the Jesus story when I mentioned the crucifiction...their stumbling block was that they thought his body couldn’t be supported by the nails...I mentioned hearing how his arms would have been bound to the cross as well (with rope or cloth or whatever)...that shut the teacher up! That show did get some unkind letters to the ed in the Green Guide...not saying that it is hilarious, but that it does have a skew to it and I found it watchable. This Pythonesque sketch made me laugh again, watching it now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jvtIRApV-4
There was some similar stuff with Americana on the programme (The elegant gentlemen’s guide to knife fighting):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRzz2hviVbU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3zdljCM50E
Since we discussed cigarette advertising in the past - right? - I’ll link to this promo for the show which riffs on that for one bit...couldn’t find the original, longer sketch online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDnP5dFqX84
Managed to find that sketch I mentioned earlier re the key party or whatever you call it...it’s in a clip for the entire episode though...the sketch starts at 17:02...I’ll see if I can link to that portion of it (hmm...I don’t think I can do it...there is a formula which you add to the URL to make it start at at that specific time...forget what that is though!):
[oh, the wonders of Google! http://youtubetime.com/ .]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYPzi_pmwHo&t=17m1s
re elections...I’ve probably already discussed the wack that is the US electoral college, right? Doesn’t the term “Gerrymander” come from a US politician? We use that word for states like Queensland...conservative government in power when that was apparently rampant.
re Bradbury skating win...skating is done with the feet...if ‘better’ skaters do it on their arse and would have beaten him had they not skated on their arses then...I say Bradbury’s got nothing to be embarrassed about! He’s the only one who actually did what the sport’s description says he should do! And it was in his calculus that he thought the others were going for too much and would likely fall over...so he did well to avoid that trouble.
re Micallef’s Logie acceptance speech...what was even more worrying was when Bert Newton said at the end that Greer Garson’s Oscar acceptance speech ran for 47 minutes!
Glad that you got to see the Wen and Hu sketch. Like it? I mentioned that he referenced the Abbott and Costello sketch and that I found that Micallef
Glad that you got to see the Wen and Hu sketch. Like it? I mentioned that he referenced the Abbott and Costello sketch and that I found that Micallef’s version works better for me as it’s more grounded. You know the Abbot and Costello sketch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfmvkO5x6Ng
Remember Mr. Speedo? The Labor (sic.) Party would joke years ago of an Abbott and Costello leadership team for the Liberal Party...Costello was the Treasurer years ago. He’s retired from politics now...so no chance of that teaming. Mr. Speedo is very likely our next Prime Minister. Oh, just remembered, last year, I think, our female Prime Minister was questioned by reporters on referring to “Mr. Rabbit”...hmm...not sure what to make of that...were Labor people doing that deliberately or is this a non-issue with reporters hearing “Mr. Abbott” as “Mr. Rabbit”? Double hmm.
re permeate free milk...from memory, the irony was that the Australian consumer was lobbying to have milk free milk or some such...as in not having permeate in the milk is pretty pointless achievement. re Load of rubbish...I have felt gypped when an electronic item I have bought fails soon after the warranty expires...but a site like Whirpool Forums for over her has good advice and I’ve managed to get these companies to replace items even after the warranty has expired...The Checkout mentions that there is some provision for items to have a reasonable lifespan so that you can have recourse if it fails after the warranty expires. That’s good to know, as I never take up those “extended warranties” offers from stores...which seem to imply that the item is guaranteed fail soon after the warranty expires! Initially companies would say I had no recourse once the product failed but if you know your rights or are assertive, you can get satisfaction. However, instead of getting a free replacement PS3 with Sony or whatever, I just did it myself...bought a bigger, faster hard drive for it (not that it seems to work faster that the old one) and replaced it myself...had the Official Playstation Magazine for Australia to inform me about that. There would be You Tubes on how to install (extra) graphic cards for PCs or sound cards...so maybe I wouldn’t be so down on yourself as far as your ability to tweak PCs yourself.
re helicopter moms/mums...that phrase has worked its way into our lingo too...but I think they used the term “guilty mum” to just make explicit how these ads/products sell to us...there was a whole series of segments in that show devoted to guilty mums. You do make sense re at least one of those items being useful...satellite tracking of your kids! Sad to say...i.e. with worrying about your kids being kidnapped or whatnot. Hmm...was speaking with a South American and mentioned to them being surprised by the Old Testament prohibition on cooking your kids in mil or whatnot...they were surprised by my surprise...as over there, apparently, “kid” doesn’t mean “child”! Ah, lingo!
re basement cellars or lack thereof...yeah, should be mandatory. Is a life worth cutting costs/corners for?
Did you say you are in a twister zone? I keep forgetting exactly where you say you live!
Did I previously link to those The Checkout stories concerning a ‘fruit water’ (in the US, I think) which didn’t actually have fruit in it? From memory, the company, be Coca Cola or whoever, said something along the lines for such a product that ‘no reasonable person’ would think that a drink labelled ‘fruit water’ would have fruit in it! FFS! You also see that segment where it’s discussed why youth fashion outlets play the music that they do and why you can smell vanilla scent at women’s clothing stores etc? The following isn’t relevant to you, but is to me...they also did a story on how Apple rips off Australian consumers and a way to circumvent that...of course they didn’t encourage people to do this, which is apparently outside of Apple’s terms of service...but they just supplied you with all the info that you needed to know to creat a US Apple account so that you could pay American prices for music etc. Now that the $A is tumbling below the $US, I suspect that there will come a point - perhaps! - where it is no longer economic to show with a fake US Apple account. But maybe you might want to buy stuff from other countries with Apple? Related question...I think The Checkout failed to inform people of this...it’s best to supply a US address to Apple or whoever, which does not incur a sales tax...didn’t you mention that before? Might want to pick your brain on this! The Checkout actually gave the White House’s address for people to feed for their fake US account! Guessing that Apple doesn’t care! Have read in the Green Guide etc. of companies which charge 5% of the purchase price or whatever for Australians wanting to buy stuff in the US but without the “for Australian customers” prices we pay...i.e. even with the 5% charge, it’s still cheaper than buying direct from the US.
P.S. Since we discussed “he said/she said” re rape previously, I thought I’d link to a recent story about a proposed military style model for one Australian state:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/sex-victims-should-get-court-choice- 20130619-2ojdz.html
P.P.S. related to an earlier discussion on tea that we had...also recently read about a cuppa tea you can get for the bargain price of $1,000!
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/brewing-up-a-storm-in-specialty-tea- at-1000-a-cup-20130622-2opgv.html
There was a story some months ago about huge prices you could expect to pay for a cup of tea...rare blends or something...not sure if I mentioned that...probably having to do with coffee beans which come from one particular farm in some far off place or something. Might actually check out one of those tea places here…mentioned white tea for $10 a cup, if memory serves…we discussed white tea a while back too, I think.
P.P.P.S. actually, "The workhorse PC" article appeared this week (27/06)...sorry if you're really not interested in this, but on the assumption that you are, here's the usual inset the article has:
CPU - Intel i5 4670K $260 (I swapped what he has in his table for the chip with the "K" in the name...he mentions it in his article...extra $25 and it's overclockable...i.e. you can tweak its settings to make it go faster. Generally the i7 chips are faster, but you can overclock i5 to compete with them...as you can the i7 chips with a K).
Motherboard - Gigabyte Z87-D3HP $158 (swapped it for the one with better cooling for an extra $30)
RAM - 8GB Kingston 1333MHz kit $69 (bigger GB and MHz if you want something more gamer orientated...i.e. that's what I'm saying, not him...PC mags might mention 16GB and I see one card with that and 1866MHz for an extra $100+)
Graphics - On board* $0
* C.W. says that only 2% of PC users can justify the expense and power drain of a dedicated graphics card. However, for gamers, he mentions the i7 chip: Intel i7 R series, Iris Pro 5200. That would no doubt cost more than i5 chip for the CPU.
SSD (solid state drive...really fast storage access) - Intel 520 SSD - 120GB. $148.
HDD - WD SATA 2TB Green Drive. $94.
Optical - LG Blu-ray writer. $89.
Case - SilverStone TJ08-E Black. $99.
Power supply - SilverStone Strider Plus 600W ST60F-P. $99.
Assembly - $70.
Total $1041 (+ $55 for those two upgrades)
Looking at PC PowerPlay magazine for this month, they have 4 different builds, including the one called The Beast, for those with more money than sense. On their two cheapest builds ($1070 & $2144) they have these two respective graphic card recommendations:
HIS Radeon HD 7950 3GB $319
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 Ghz OC $449 (it comes with games too)
The July issue of APC magazine looks into the new Intel chip...it mentions that the top on board graphic engine for that is the HD 5200 but (if I'm reading the article right) that it isn't on their top chip...on the assumption that people will want their own graphic card for things like gaming...so, I think that the top chip has the HD 4600 on board graphic engine. They've also got a table comparing that on board graphic engine (HD 4600)to the previous generation equivalent. Playing games on full HD graphics (1,920 x 1,080 resolution) the new engine generally plays games pretty slowly, like on Bioshock Infinite (14.26 frames per second average) bu the game DiRT Showdown is more playable at 25.06 fps. Not sure what numbers the HD 5200 would hit here. But if you played new games like those at less than full HD then no doubt they would be quite playable. No doubt those PCPP graphic card recommendations would churn out much more playable frame rates for games in full HD. Do you have a monitor to justify wanting to play games on full HD settings? If not, maybe you could hold off on buying a graphics card until you see how the on board goes?
Lastly, I suppose there could be big bargains on the previous generation's super chips...something like the Intel Core i7-3770K (which has the previous generation on board graphics engine too...its frames per second took a hit from the new chip...the best it got was 22.44 frames per second for DiRt BUT that was at lower resolution than what the new chip got on full HD! I.e. it got that on 1,366 x 768 resolution).
If you want to get a graphic card, just make sure that it's compatible with an motherboard you've heard good things about. Some mobos allow you to have more than one graphic card working for you.
Did I just waste my time writing all this stuff?
Word count: 4,971 (sorry! Would expect my next reply to be much shorter without all that PC blah!...how many more words extra is this? Sorry again!)
You can't create a post without a body
Re board changes- was able to look at your post a couple days after you wrote it, and at that time I hadn’t experienced any changes to how the board was viewed. Then some family stuff happened and now, I think it is a mess. Seems like this board only goes to 10 pages and everything after that just got deleted, though went into personal message board history and it seems like they might all still be there, maybe. Have no way of knowing for sure. Don’t really care for any of the layout views, and REALLY don’t like how when you click to open another reply all the others stay open. So irritating all these sites that do updates that just make things worse. I can understand IMDB wanting to update the look because their old board did look a bit dated in comparison to some others, but it worked really well and was easy to use. This looks newer, but the function suffers, which seems to be the case more often than not anymore. Remember in the mid to late 90s there were some sites that I was on that were about as basic as you could get, but you could find what you were looking for easily and navigation was basic. Now they installed filters which have been modified to the point of not working and you have to go through several menus to get what you’re looking for, and if it isn’t marked right it won’t show up anywhere except mixed in with everything and impossible to find. Don’t know if it will be for all posts from here on out, but all apostrophes and quotation marks are appearing as those annoying diamonds with question marks in them on my screen.
When replying to posts, I usually wait a few days to start because you do usually edit something in. After I’m done writing the reply up I’ll refresh the page to make sure that nothing has been added while I’ve been writing – think that’s only happened once or twice.
Re fire tornado- Christ, I thought that was something that just happened in cheesy sci-fi. Not something I’d ever want to experience that’s for sure. Did a brief google search and saw National Geographic had posted film of a Hawaii fire tornado.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/environment-news/us-fir e-tornado-vin/
Crazy to think of a tornado in Hawaii. There must be something about the terrain there and in Australia that makes it easier to form or I think more video would be around from different places.
Re maggots as food- just read transcript, but what farmer says makes more sense than what’s going on now. Feed the chickens they’re natural food source instead of a foreign one. Might wind up with naturally healthier chickens, too.
Re plates- “I” and “1” on plates are done differently enough to be able to tell. “I” has the cross bars on the top and bottom; “1” depends on the state, but some have a little diagonal slant on top and a bar on bottom, which is easier to read, and then other states don’t have the bottom cross bar.
Found this California plate that shows the o and 0 problem. My guess is the square-ish one is the 0 and the rounder one in the o.
https://www.newportpi.com/private-investigator-license-plate/
I’d image the Cali police would know the difference, but don’t could see cops from other states having a more difficult time knowing which is which.
Re The Last of Us- second review I’ve seen for the game that gives it a top score. The fungi zombies or whatever they are looked really creepy, and to be honest a really cool idea. Haven’t played any of Naughty Dog’s grown up games, but did enjoy the Crash Bandicoot games and have a Jak and Daxter that I’ve played on and off that is enjoyable.
Re Walking Dead game- thought I had heard mixed reviews for that one, or maybe it was just some people on twitter dissatisfied with it. Or maybe that was some other product from the franchise – can’t remember for sure.
Re PS4 vs Xbox One- there is a big convention over here called E3 that is a big showcase of new games and consuls coming out within a couple of years and Xbox took some flack because of something to do with how games had to be unlocked in the region they were coded for. Apparently a bunch of soldiers have their systems with them over seas and have loved ones send games in care packages and with the coding issue they wouldn’t be able to do that with the Xbox One. Military also raised concerns about the system always being on and being aware of conversations. This article think covers all the big ones.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/navy-publication-blasts-xbox-one-6410382
Guess there are more issues than what I remembered. Can’t believe the company told people to just keep the 360 if they can’t meet the internet requirements for the One. San Diego Comic-Con is going to be next weekend (July 18-21) and supposedly Microsoft is going to have some panels. Maybe they’ll have changed their minds about some of the problems with the new system and make it more friendly, but being Microsoft I highly doubt it.
Re computers- I don’t really need any of the super fancy cards for sound, graphic, etc. I don’t game on my computer hardly at all. Used to play Civilization IV, but haven’t done so in a few years, and online games tend to be limited to a fast game of solitaire or mahjong, which operate on basic graphics. I use photoshop, but again it tends to be more simplistic stuff and my version is currently three out of date so any new computer should do for that. There were some battery overheating issues a few years ago (and some heating issues that still persists) that I think damaged an internal fan and maybe some circuits, so the amount of time I can watch online vids tend to be limited before strange noises start up that are too annoying to ignore, and have been leery of putting in dvds, though prefer to watch dvd on TV instead of computer so that isn’t a huge issue. Right now my biggest thrill out of a new computer would be the new keyboard. In past few months, for reasons I can’t identify, my “r” key has decided that you have to hit it just right or it won’t type, which is a big slow down and having to fix a bunch of mistakes when I forget about it. Also makes me wonder if other keys are going to start acting up.
Will probably be sticking with a laptop for convenience sake, even though I like bigger screens. Currently I have a 17”, but from the little I’ve started looking most have gone down to a 15” and change for the biggest screen available, which I can understand. 17” is great for working, but more cumbersome to carry and in a laptop mobility ease is usually one of the top factors.
Just seeing the info at the bottom, the solid state drive is something I’d be interested in getting, but they do tend to be more expensive for less space. For a drive, some of the BR writers don’t write regular CDs and I use that more than the BR writer. Will probably download my first TV eps with in the next couple of months because it doesn’t look like a DVD will ever be out, but they are standard def and can’t imagine needing to write it onto BR. Also notice that there is no mention of a monitor. Like I said, I’ll most likely be sticking with a laptop. Don’t have a good place to set up a desktop and prefer the mobility the laptop gives me.
Re culture differences- you really think Australians, Canadians, Americans, and New Zealanders don’t have their own separate cultures different from the English? Really?
And since Nobel Prizes didn’t start until about 1900, can’t really use Shakespeare as an example. Like saying Newton, Euclid, and Buddha never won.
Re survival of the fittest- fittest in this case does not always mean bodybuilder type. It is referring to the ones that can adapt the best to their environment and pass on their genes through mating. So if the environment calls for something small and sneaky, like say a mouse, the larger mice aren’t going to survive as long and not pass on genes as much or at all. If an animal traditionally only eats one type of thing, but a few of the species are eating a little bit differently, and the environment changes where that new food source is the only one, then the ones that had the more diverse diet will be the ones to live on.
Re “cryptid reports”- a cryptid is an animal or plant that some people think might exist but there is little or no evidence of such. Most famous is probably the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland, or the various Bigfoot/Yeti/Sasquatch reports from around the world.
Re housing bubbles- In general over here different areas have bubbles and booms at different times, though when the economy crashed everyone seemed to get hit. There were houses in Vegas before the crash that were going for around 300K USD, and after you could get the same house for about half the price. Lot of people had defaulted on mortgages and banks were desperate to sell, or people were desperate to sell before they had to hand it over to the bank.
Side track, do you know if foreigners can purchase property in Australia or do you have to be an Australian citizen? One of those house hunting shows my mom watches a lot of have shown a few different people looking for housing over there and it seems they’re all renting, and know some countries won’t allow foreigners to buy.
Re Jesus clip- I’m still not sure why the feet thing struck me. Did find it funny, though.
Re Raspberry clip- bit WTH, and loved the ‘stop it’ lady at the end. The American Gothic and *beep* Movember ones didn’t really get. Lincoln obviously not having the moustache and full beard, but didn’t see the humour. Got a bigger kick out of some of the longer ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBtdBr7zJJI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwRbl87Nu3A
Back to the too literal thing, the blast radius from the shotgun would have definitely done serious damage to the temp with any shot the bearded man put off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39xp6SdJLMw
Re key party clip or whatever it was that you tried to get started at 17:02 has been taken down due to a copyright claim by Jason Burrows
Re gerrymander- came from a Massachusetts governor in the early 1800s that was doing extreme redistricting to get results in his party’s favour. One of the districts he re-drew looked like a salamander so Gerry+salamander=gerrymander.
Re Wu skit- that one was short enough to be funny. The Abbott and Costello skit went on too long. The one you linked to was nailed for copyright, but another one was available, and I wanted to take the fat guy’s bat and hit both the actors over the head with it by the 3 minute mark. Wasn’t able to watch all 6+ mins.
Re warranty fails- the box we had for our internet connection for the company tends to be like that. First one lasted long enough for the model to be obsolete (which since it was technology I think was four years). The second one I think it was like three or four months past the warranty date, but think it was only like $15 to replace it. Granted about 8 months later we updated the whole phone, internet, cable system and the previous box wouldn’t work at all with the new system so….what are you gonna do?
Re building computer- If I could pick up the pieces cheap enough, and knew I’d have a place to tinker with it until it was running, I might try, but the couple of times I’ve looked at graphic cards in stores or have glimpsed at bits and pieces online, you buy that stuff you better know what you’re doing or you’re just wasting money. Plus I always worry what is wrong with the parts being sold online when via most stores or outlets you find it no cheaper than like $40, but some random never heard of person/place is selling it for $10. I know there is a big mark up on this stuff, but just seems really sketchy.
Re kid- so South Africans only call baby goats kids then? Language history is always interesting. How something starts off as one things and through the centuries gets turned into something completely different and has meant a few other things along the way.
Re no basement/cellar houses- the absurd thing is that people buy them. I can’t see wanting a house so bad that you just decide it is fine not to have something like that.
Re tornado zone- we are in the region that gets hit every year. Seems the defined region keeps shrinking, though when it should be expanding. When I was little I remember ‘tornado alley’ – the region where the most tornadoes are seen- covering most of the center of the country plus Florida. Now it is shrunk down to just a few states when all of the states that used to count as tornado alley are still getting hit regularly and now we’re seeing more in the northeast. Whoever decides these things really needs to keep a better eye on stats.
Re The Checkout- don’t remember the fruit water, fashion outlet music, or vanilla scent in women’s stores.
Was able to find the movie/music download ripoff story. Sounds most likely to me that the prices were set awhile ago and no one wants to bother to change them, especially since with the Aussie dollar having gone up they’re making more money off it.
As for the sales tax bit, online downloads are not taxed, whether it is Apple, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble (a national bookstore). Because of the way sales tax works, if you order a physical something (i.e. computer) from Apple, if there is an Apple store in the state you live, there is sales tax, even if it is ordered online and delivered to your house. Amazon, because it is an online retailer with no store where people can come in and shop, does not add sales tax to any orders purchased through Amazon. Other retailers that are strictly online retailers don’t charge sales tax either. There are several companies that want online retailers to have to charge sales tax because they don’t think it is fair that they have to charge tax and online retailers don’t, which mean people can buy things cheaper from Amazon.
As for the account, I thought I remembered Apple asking for a credit card for the account. Maybe they changed it since I set mine up. Would think a red flag would be thrown up when the account constantly had an Aussie card pay for purchases.
Re tea- can’t imagine paying a $1000 for a cup of tea; I don’t care if it is extinct.
Word Count: 2562
re the new IMDB...sort of get the feeling it’s change for change’s sake. Ages ago I added you as a friend so I could keep tabs on when you posted as sometimes my reply to you would get buried under new posts of mine and it was a hassle to trawl through my posts to find my reply to you to see if you had replied to it. On the old board finding “Friends” was easy. Then it became impossible, I think. It seems to be back now but it requires more steps to get there...perhaps. It’s good that the markup options are now available when you type your reply as opposed to clicking on the link for that which either brings up the markup or opens a new tab with those options. It’s bad for the same kind of reasons you mentioned. Everything gets ‘improved’ nowadays by coming up with new and obscure symbols for various operations (having huge problems now logging into another site which recently “improved” it’s system). Word docs used to be easier to type because the operations were represented textually, I think, whereas now it’s like Egyptian hieroglyphics...which leaves me clueless as to how to do something basic to what I write. Heaven forbid that schools start introducing an ‘improved’ alphabet! Actually, I think an Australian made a step in that direction...
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/what-th-one-mans-q uest-for-a-symbol-solution-20130705-2pgd8.html
That actually doesn’t seem so bad...
re quotation marks as annoying symbols on your screen now...perhaps that’s an old browser that you’re using...or you need to update something browsery? That's weird...speaking of fonts (actually, I cut and pasted this bit from an end note...right after speaking of fonts!)...edited this post and when it went it had weird hieroglyphic symbols at times...possibly due to quotation marks or something...made the entire post in Times New Roman but when I came back to this post all the weird hieroglyphics had gone. Hmm. Double hmm...looking at my previous message, perhaps, in edit mode, I had question mark symbols with a black backdrop behind them (again in place of quotation marks, I think).
re fire tornado vid you linked to...currently the PC I’m using doesn’t have the right upgrade to Adobe Flash. If I get a PC which can play it I’ll be able to revisit it. > Okay, seen it now. I was looking at the fire part of it and it sort of looked like lightning...it looked more like a dust devil that way but then I noticed the the smoke part of the tornado and it obviously made it look bigger than I thought it was. The vid said it was shot on August...2012? The Catalyst story made it seem like it was a newly discovered phenomenon. Anyway, I think that Catalyst vid mentioned something about the “lee” side usually safe but not in a fire tornado...without researching this (yuh, I know!), I’m guessing that’s something along the lines of generally the side of the hill between you and the fire is safer than the side of the hill where the fire is at...but with a fire tornado, that ‘lee’ side becomes dangerous...to do with that circular fire/wind process, I’m guessing. That doesn’t provide much hope in that case! I.e. the only advice to be given by someone in that predicament is to ‘die with dignity’!
re feeding chickens maggots...yeah, do that and save the world! Totally unrelated, Australian football umpires here are sometimes referred to as “white maggots”!
re number plates and “1”/”l” and “0”/”o”...Media Watch did do a story on newspaper fonts (see, I did actually mention fonts in this message!). In some cases that looks like the obvious solution. E.g. I think Times Roman would not make the following confusing at all “I’ll”/”Ill”/III. That’s a contraction of “I will”, “ill” with a cap and the Roman numeral 3. I think that Times Roman has the dog bone shaped capital “i”. Not sure if the Roman numerals would be clear though...well, context would make that clear, I suppose. Looking at your picture of the car number plate, I’m confused! Some handwriting and fonts have the number 0 with a line across its ‘waist’...which might make it confusable with an 8, perhaps. In your pic, was the number 0 the boxy looking one?
> Noticed online today (01/08/13) this cartoon/story:
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/september32012/xkcd.png
That cartoon came from the first hyperlink in the story below:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/-the-10-most-easily-stolen-atm-pi ns--184658424.html
Speaking of bad fonts...a video game review show (since this is an edit, I mention these in the next para) had a truly awful one recently...not sure if you can view this vid and it might take a while to load up to the relevant bit, but in any case...the fonts for the interviewees’ names, I think, were Godawful...maybe the one at 9:37 is the worst, but the one at 9:17 isn’t too flash either. That show has a regularish segment called “Weird & Retro” from memory, and I tend to read it as something weird at times...”Weiro & hero”? Forget in any case.
http://c31.org.au/schedule/view/episode/94296
re games...since I watch gaming shows and read or browse gaming mags I’m familiar with E3...Good Game had the female co-host go there this year and that community station also had a presence there...which surprised me...it being a community tv show! Not sure why there are at least x3 gaming shows on community tv.
- re Crash Bandicoot etc...even when I had my first console, the N64, I didn’t buy games like Mario or Zelda...turns out they’re now considered classics...I probably thought at the time that they were kids games...not that games I did buy, like NBA Hang Time weren’t! Thinking of buying or downloading some PS2 games, I think they are, like “Ico/Shadow of the Colussus”...supposed to be two classic games...obscure for me though.
- re mixed reviews for Walking Dead...one magazine regularly features an excerpt from a rabid hater online who gives a great/popular game a very low score...often 0. Different haters, I mean, for each excerpt. Read another article recently in some PC mag I think about crusaders...they jump on an anti-game band wagon and campaign to stop sales or use of a game but eventually they relent and buy the game from a company they were very hostile towards recently. Funny example was of one game which was campaigned against by the haters then a different game came out (the new Sim City?) and those old haters hated Sim City and told people to get the older game which they had previously said not to get!
- re XBox One...I think MS backtracked on some of those elements that article you linked to mentions. Not sure how much though...i.e. whether it’s enough to calm the militant haters...maybe Microsoft did a full - ahem - 360 on the issue? Well, 180 would be more correct.
re your new computer...I thought you were saying you wanted to have something capable of playing modern games. From what you say it sounds like you fit in Charles Wright characterisation of someone who really doesn’t need a dedicated graphics card (GPU). Wright’s article mentioned Intel’s newest generation chip and the top of the line one with it’s own graphic capability was the chip with on board graphics engine model Iris Pro HD 5200. I was confused in my last post as to whether that graphics engine was on the top of the line chip. I think that that graphics engine is only on chips made for laptops...just looked up the product on Wikipedia and that seems to be the case...the relevant one is in the “GPU Model” 4th column to the right, below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_%28microarchitecture%29#Mobile_pr ocessors
Would say that the chip brand that would be the cheapest for that option would be the 4750HQ...via the 3rd column from the right in the link above.
Be curious how much the latest gen Intel chip with the Iris Pro HD 5200 costs. It sounds like overkill for your purposes but if you wanted to play modern games at less than extreme resolutions it sounds like it would suffice (or be less than ideal on extreme resolutions). Chuck in a Solid State Drive (SSD) - say 128 Gb, and 8Gb RAM (a fast one if you can afford it...assuming it improves your speed!) - and maybe get a laptop with Linux OS - you could have yourself an affordable laptop which is capable of playing modern games without requiring a separate graphics card...good GPUs for laptops are no doubt a significant % of the cost of a new laptop. If you decide to buy one let me know how it goes for you...re price and how gaming goes on it. Like I said, Charles Wright wrote that 98% of computer users don’t need GPUs which the hardcore gamers get...that new Intel chip with the onboard graphics will suffice for 98% of gamers. In my last post I forgot to mention a link Wright provided to assemblers of PCs...that’s for desktops but no doubt the site has specific forums and threads to help people choose good laptops:
bit.ly/16Lyl8N
I’ll provide a link to a relevant forum here:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/130
The reason to get a solid state drive (SSD) is to boot a lot faster when you turn your computer on or want to access programmes that you use often. It is more expensive now and you don’t get much space. I think the solution is what Apple calls “fusion” drives and I think PCs call “hybrid” drives...the fast response times of SSD coupled with regular hard disc drives for storage...think it’s a single unit. But the SSD could make your computer come to life in around 10 seconds or so, compared to a normal HDD.
What tv (?) show are you looking to download because you don’t think it will be out DVD? Would you use torrents for that?
I can sympathise with your trouble re the “r” key...hate using keyboards which are finnicky like that...forcing me to bang down on the Shift key or Enter key every few seconds etc. Was chatting to a guy who works at a petrol station the other day...he mentioned a prank show where one guy follows or annoys random people...the victim in this case went into the office where he works and used his computer...porn started playing! That would be embarrassing...hmm...reminds me of this moment on Australian tv...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOab8lYI2H8&t=1m20s
When searching for that I also got a hit for something worse on Swedish tv news...but the You Tube was really blurry...I wouldn’t link to it even if it wasn’t. Did hear on the radio about the Australian case...apparently it wasn’t as bad as it seemed...something about some sort of magazine email or something...for a gents magazine, but not explicit and perhaps not even soft-porn...maybe “FHM”?...embarrassing in any case with the baby popping up on his screen..
re different cultures...I suppose I’m saying that English, Australian and Americans are genetically identical so I don’t really think that this is some sort of fundamental difference between them...it’s all superficial. Furthermore, I think someone like the African American Paul Robeson would be someone for whom Shakespeare was part of his culture as opposed to the vast majority of English people. If an English football hooligan had said to Robeson “We have Shakespeare...you have nothing comparable!” I’d find that rather laughable. Most English people would be riding on the tail coats of people who actually have Shakespeare as part of their culture...like Robeson. Or an Australian like John Bell.
re Shakespeare never winning a Nobel prize but Aussies have...tongue in cheek!
re your comments about survival of the fittest...don’t remember what I said which prompted that but I wouldn’t have thought I was saying something different.
re housing bubbles...do remember reading of homes for sale in the US for $1! Might have thought of buying into that but the articles scared me off...can you imagine thinking investing $1 is too risky? Basically that’s because I read things like internal plumbing being stolen etc and the neighbourhoods being bad etc. Have read of people here stealing overhead copper wires from the train lines...putting trains out of service for a while. Risking their lives to do that. The city did mention that they were going to use helicopters with thermal imaging to survey the tracks, I think, to crack down on this.
One big difference between the US and us re houses is that over here, you are responsible for repaying a home loan. Cf the US where there is some clause whereby if things go bad for the buyer they can wash their hands of their debt. Forget the specifics of that but I think that may have been mentioned as another factor for the US’ housing bubble.
re buying property in Australia...I think foreigners do it all the time. Maybe there are meant to be some roadblocks which may not get enforced...or maybe some people are lobbying to prevent foreigners buying housing stock here. Think it gets mentioned as one factor as to why prices are so high here...cashed up Chinese or whatever buying property here at inflated prices.
Learned something interesting a few years back, I think...an Englishman, I think, called Lord Vesty, owns a farm(s?) in Australia which is bigger than Great Britain, from memory! Not sure if he still does. Just odd that I’d never heard of him even though he owns so much of Australia. Anyway, back to buying property over here...it probably varies from state to state as to who is allowed to buy property as far as foreigners are concerned. I wouldn’t think there was any prohibition against it...but to me that seems like something likely to inflate the housing bubble that I think we have...not that I’m an expert on this. There’s a story in a recent edition of The Age newspaper about our former female prime minister Julia Gillard (remember her? The one with the misogyny speech...yeah, the man she stabbed in the back to take the crown stabbed her right back...it looks like Mr. Speedo now has a fight on his hands to become PM!) selling her home. Think she bought it in the 1980s for just over a $100,000 and it’s estimated to be worth over $500,000 now. Oh, rival paper says she bought it in 1998 for $140,000 and it might sell for $550,000 - $600,000.
Oh, just remembered...you mentioned not minding the news satire from here called The Roast...they reminded me about something with Mr. Speedo...don’t have time to look for their episode with that in it, but they used some footage from this (okay, look at the link after the one below for that Roast moment, but the link directly below for the context, if you are interested):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PkHix9Km94
If I don’t forget, I’ll either look for The Roast’s bit on that or at least cut to the relevant bit of that video...as our former and current prime minister says...I gotta zip!
> Okay, found that segment in The Roast...I’ll link to the start of the bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6IqWb2-bM8&t=7m13s
re Jesus clip...I think the joke is just in the title “Cross training”...get it? Get it? (I’m kidding with the “Get it”’s...reedited this just in case you thought I was being condescending!) re Movember...do you not get that in the US? It’s just a fundraising thing where men grow moustaches to raise money for whatever it is they raise money for. Think it happens every November, so they just created the word “Movember”, mashing “moustache” with “November”...So, Abe Lincoln just says “Eff Movemeber!”...maybe you need to know about Movember in order to see what the sketch was aiming for...but I’m not saying it’s an hilarious sketch or anything. Wikipedia has a link for “Movember”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember
re OHS sketch re porn...was going to say that I didn’t find it particularly funny but I think I originally missed the start of it and what I saw again did make me laugh but I didn’t watch all of your clip...I think it goes on too long. I do remember liking the Amish tech support sketch in that show...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O76KB_-qaJQ
re key party clip being taken down...managed to find the official clip...no mucking around with the time in the url:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGUuwqKw3Qw
You mention the Abbott & Costello sketch being too long...maybe you’re right but the main reason it doesn’t work for me is that it isn’t grounded...I doubt if that point in US history you had Chinese baseball players! The Micallef sketch works because it’s based in reality.
Speaking of long sketches...I’ve noticed that shows like Family Guy really stretch out awkward moments and really make a point of exaggerating pauses and silence...can’t give you one off the top of my head...nor find something with my You Tube searches. Elegant Gentlemen had something like that...I personally don’t find the following sketch funny, so I don’t recommend that you watch it (!) but it’s an example of that kind of stretching of a concept to beyond breaking point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZHUXxILF7o
You can see just by the running time how long that sketch goes for...waaay too much for mind. Did remember seeing something in the US show Portlandia...2nd series of that...probably made a note on what I had in mind but now I can’t recall...same concept...really stretching a scene to breaking point...oh, found my note on that...I meant this sketch...
Portlandia - Sacagawa (can you view this link? If not, just use the phrase to the left)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyyDpGJG9UA&list=PLB6296A23F6FB2F6A
Portlandia is kind of like Elegant Gentlemen...I’d call it conceptual humour...not exactly laugh out loud funny, but amuses on an intellectual level...Monty Python could be like that...and like Elegant Gentlemen it could be hit or miss and just really stretch things out. Didn’t mind the following bit from the show either...sort of like what some Australian comedians do re our national anthem...but more the opposite...as in they make fun of the fact that we scat the lyrics after the first verse because we don’t know it (e.g. “blah blah blah blah-blah” hummed to our anthem’s tune etc...):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJLQfOQbtyE
Oh, noticed that he does scat in that song! Sort of reminds me of the comedic singing of a commercial tv announcer over here used by comedians...he really tortures the delivery! Couldn’t find something from a comedy radio show he would do his schtick on, but found him here...remember now that the running gag on this show was that one of the stars always booked the wrong guest to sing a famous song...not sure if I linked to another instance of this years ago (!) here...a former female premier of our state singing “I love rock’n’roll”.
You can't create a post without a body
Anyway...Pete Smith - Dude (looks like a lady)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HatDAE2cDu4
From the same show...Joan Kirner - I love rock’n’roll
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGyD2hn7d3Y
In the past week (today is 08/08/13) Joan made the news because she is currently battling cancer.
Found a side-link to one of those You Tubes above...think I mentioned this years ago without having luck finding it...maybe I was looking under the wrong show or something (was under the impression that maybe they did this kind of parody on their earlier “The D Generation” show...but can’t find that online)...it’s a parody of ”It’s academic”, a real quiz show featuring high school student contestants...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca078S-mcAA
Some of the answers in that are a bit too local, but hopefully there’s some humour in it for you.
re your warranty fails...maybe the US has less consumer protection that Australia? Like I said, The Checkout stated that Australians should expect a reasonable lifespan for a consumer good...big appliances have a longer ‘reasonable’ lifespan than something more trivial. Oh, remembered that Australia doesn’t have “lemon” laws like the US...so we’re worse than yous as far as that goes. Oddly, Volkswagen was recently in the news here re the engine suddenly cutting out...linked to the death of a woman here. VW had recalled the car in overseas markets but not here...until days after the story became mainstream here.
re “kids”...I’m not sure why you mention South Africans for that. I’m pretty sure that seeing that word used in the bible confused me...as I thought it meant small children! Maybe even on farms here or in the US you would have people use that word in a farming context?
Why is the defined place of “tornado alley” shrinking? What’s that all about?
re higher prices for Australians of US goods etc...actually, our dollar has plummeted of late...think it was pushing AU$1 = US$1.10 however many months back but now AU$1 = US$0.92ish...under US$0:90 yesterday, 01/08/13)). Be interesting if the US companies are consistent in keeping prices stable or whether they plead that they have to increase our prices because of the fall of the dollar...i.e. Australians get no upside to a strong dollar but do get a downside to a weak dollar (higher prices). That would suck!
re companies wanting to charge online retailers tax...the same here too, for the same reason...but it’s mainly US companies which are the target...like Amazon. Think the threshold over here at the moment is purchases of $1,000 and under are tax free. Can’t remember what the bricks and mortars stores here wanted that reduced to. There’s probably an element of these Australian companies also having a history of charging us a premium for goods like their US counterparts.
re: “Re The Checkout- don’t remember the fruit water, fashion outlet music, or vanilla scent in women’s stores.”
Pretty sure I linked to that in earlier posts...PC I’m on is giving me crap...so at the moment I won’t try and find links to those stories again. Maybe later. > Can’t seem to find something easily...official website not easy to find it but You Tube has entire episodes online I think...it’s just that I can’t be arsed watching all of them again...be handy if there was an episode synopsis somewhere which would make it easier to find the relevant segments. From memory, wafting vanilla scent into a store for women makes them more inclined to shop...also, something about modern dance music or whatever working well for trendy clothes stores...can’t remember why though.
P.S. Since we’ve recently discussed US prices given to Australians for digital content, I’ll link to The Roast’s bit on this which I saw yesterday (it’s the first story on the clip):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw0WCGC2BTI
If you watched the intro, there’s new titles this year...they’ve basically invented a pretend history of their time on air...making it seem like they’ve been around for decades.
Noticed an old note for a Roast story on gun control in the US...post that school massacre earlier this year...first story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdKkk7wWG18
P.P.S. another old note of mine...since we were talking about rape before (weren’t we?)...there was an interesting story re using our military justice system as a model for dealing with these sorts of crimes (I think it was in regard to what we were saying about “he says” “she says” situations:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/sex-victims-should-get-court-choice- 20130619-2ojdz.html
P.P.P.S. blank spot for story recentlyish about two ideological models for schooling which have identical outcomes, pretty much (re centralised system v independent system):
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/school-compet ition-a-myth-20130711-2pqtf.html
It seems that something like paragraph 3 is what I thought might interest you.
Word count: 3,848 (according to my usual source, MS Word)
Word count: 4,231 (according to Google Doc)
Word count: 3,889 (according to OpenOffice Writer...a new app on a new PC I was trying...place runs on Linux...owner says it’s his own Linux distro!)
Hmm. All word counts include the markup symbols.
You can't create a post without a body
My computer decided to stop working last week, and the computer repair people confirmed it was a suicide this past weekend. My reply wasn't backed up to any external device, so I'm hoping to get it re-typed, polished off, minus some vid links, and have it up by the end of the week.
shareOUCH! That kind of makes you lose the will to live...at least when it happens to me (coz you know that I don't tweet!). Lately I've been 'replying' to you via Google Docs...it auto-saves frequently as you type. When this kind of stuff happened to me I just know that I forgot to say something again in the re-do...and sometimes I got a bit terse in my 'new' reply. Did use another site to also do a dry run reply to you, but that did't auto save, which kind of made it pointless if the PC I was on froze and I had to reboot for it work.
Empathise.
You can't create a post without a body
Re Word- When Word ‘updated’ their look, I was still using an older version on my computer. Went to work for a guy as his quasi-secretary for a bit who had the new version and took me 5-10 minutes one time to find a certain kind of layout for printing because the option was in a completely different place. Now there is stuff stacked on top of each other that if you don’t know where it is, good luck.
Re ‘the’ symbol- it makes sense to me. Have wondered in the past why isn’t one. Reworking it into a keyboard, though, would be expensive.
Re fire tornadoes- came across a story on yahoo couple weeks back where a fire tornado was filmed in Alaska – definitely not some place I ever think of tornadoes existing, normal or fire. Had a link to the video, which was poor to begin with, looked for it on YT and those seemed even worse. Was a small thing in comparison to the Australian one.
Re stolen pin number story- I want to know how they get the data for a story like this. Are there people dumb enough to actually tell someone ‘yeah, my pin number was 123456 at one point and it was stolen.’ Or are the banks giving out the info, which I didn’t think they could do, and seems like a security hazard.
I will say this about passwords: I know you aren’t supposed to have passwords written down anywhere, and in the days when they might have about four I can understand, but now you need a password for every different site and none of them are supposed to be the same. The two ways around this are a) having everything connected through one site, like facebook, which seems more and more sites are pushing for, or b) never logging out of a site. Both seem to leave you open to hackers pretty easily, or with option b if the computer gets stolen they don’t even need to know your current password. (Yeah, I just had to reset all but one of my passwords for the sites I visit, and until you sit down and do it in one go you don’t realize how many you’ve accumulated over the years – that’s assuming I haven’t forgotten any.)
Re classic games- over here some of the hardware companies that have turned mostly into game companies are releasing consuls/handhelds that look like the original but have a bunch of the classics for that consul downloaded on it. Have seen an Atari system liked that, the Sega Game Gear, and one other that I can’t remember.
I’ve never been much of a Zelda fan, and Mario is hit or miss. Like the classic ones for the original NES more than a lot of the ones they’ve brought out in recent years.
Re computers- Was hoping to put it off for another year, but now that mine up and died, guess that isn’t an option anymore. Need a decent graphics card for photoshop, but the version I’m using is 3 out-of-date, I’d probably be good with even a basic card by today’s standards. Would like to update photoshop as well, but the full program is more expensive than some laptops, so that is definitely going to have to wait.
Unless something major happens in the next couple of months to shake up the laptop market I’ll be sticking with Mac. I don’t know enough about computers and programming to feel fully comfortable on a computer that runs solely on Linux, and really don’t feel comfortable trying to run dual operating systems on one computer. That is one of those things I’d like to have a cheap one to practice on before possibly screwing up a good one. Looked a bit into Windows 8 and that seems to be made more for touch screens than regular models, and while I’m okay with a tablet, smartphone, itouch being touch, I don’t want fingerprints all over my computer screen like that, constantly having to clean it off. Mac has a new OS coming out by the end of the year, so will try to hold out until that comes out. One of the good things about still living with parents is can use theirs when they aren’t.
Will most likely stick with an HDD due to storage space vs price in SSD, and don’t shut my computer down enough for it to matter. The fusion drives aren’t available on the laptops from Mac so that isn’t an issue. Maybe it’s because I haven’t used a machine with one, but right now it doesn’t seem to me like a SSD would do me any better than a HDD.
Re gaming- I’ve never been a hard core gamer, and don’t see myself ever becoming one. One, I’ve never been that good at them, and two I have a hard time justifying the expense. Been thinking I should look into some free online gaming, but don’t know how much really free online stuff there is anymore.
Re porn in background- watched the first part of the vid where it shows him opening the links from an e-mail, so I’m guessing it may have been work related in some way. A lot of companies over here have blockers where that stuff wouldn’t pop up at all. Would think, though, that if you’re going to do a live news shot there would be some warning to the people unlucky enough to be in the background. Have wondered why news agencies do shots of having one person in the foreground and a bunch of work stations with people at work in the background. Seems like they’re just asking for gaffes like this one to happen.
Re tv show download- have gotten into Top Gear UK lately and the earlier seasons don’t look like they’ll ever be on dvd. All series are available in torrent, and there are a few full eps on YT, and if someone like me can find them I really don’t think the people from Top Gear really care. That being said, download via Amazon or iTunes starts with S6 and goes through current series, except with S9 ep 1 isn’t available through Amazon or iTunes, just torrent. S10 on are on DVD; S10 is the shorter, international cut of the show, but after that I think it is the full eps. I have some of the series on dvd, but with like S10 I found out after I bought it that they were the shorter, international cut of the eps, which is also what is from AZ or iT, so have no issue using torrents to get the full eps after buying the discs, and for the early series there is no other option. Prefer discs, with music, movies, or tv, but it is getting to the point where sometimes that just isn’t an option anymore.
Re $1 homes- you’re right to think they’re risky. A lot of them are ones that people did default on and the banks took the house back, and for whatever reason are just trying to get rid of it. Houses like that are sometimes sold without being able to look at them first. Some people trash the place before they leave, like walls torn up, fixtures gone, wiring and plumbing messed up. Some of the house are also in what are termed ‘up and coming neighborhoods,’ which are ones that were neighborhoods no one wanted to live in and a bunch of the places were abandoned, and then someone decided that that was going to be the new trendy area to live and started to fix the places up. The crime is still higher in the area, though, so they’re iffy places to live in. So you buy it cheap, spend a bunch in fixing it up, and you might not be able to sell it, especially in this economy.
Re defaulting on houses- Yeah, part of the housing problem over here banks were giving loans to people that couldn’t afford to pay them off. In those cases, the people get kicked out of the house, the bank takes ownership of the house, try to resell it, and the people don’t have to repay the remainder of the loan. Think it is a type of bankruptcy. There are several different kinds and all have different rules about how much the people have to pay back. After a few years, as long as people keep their credit up and don’t accrue more debt, the bankruptcy gets wiped from their credit score and their credit recovers.
Re Chinese buying real estate- there was a story on 60 Minutes here where they said that there is a growing middle class in China that are mostly putting their money into real estate in China because they don’t have anything else to really invest in. The story made it sound like they weren’t allowed to invest in anything foreign and bank accounts don’t pay enough interest to make it worth it, so they invest in real estate, and because of that there are whole cities in China that have been built and there is no one living there and the retail outlets are completely empty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF-rR4zEJRM
re Mr. Speedo’s nodding interview- as a politician, why would you think you could get away with just nodding through an interview like that? For a moment I was wondering if he was having some kind of medical attack.
Re Amish IT- had come across it when looking at other clips. Thought it hit beyond ridiculous. Understand workers who feel their superiors don’t understand what they’re doing, but Amish in IT because of a good interview? What was that conversation about exactly? Or maybe they’re trying to kill the company. Just eh.
Re key party- bit predictable, and oh so awkward. They might need to come up with a better draw system in the future, not that Keith is going to have to worry about it.
Re Smithston clip- I guess the only defense of the clip is that people sometimes focus on strange things when tragedy strikes. Didn’t watch the whole thing, jumped around a bit.
Re Sacajawea- I couldn’t watch that whole thing. Again jumped around a bit, but ugh. And the tone that they use to address the teens doesn’t help either. Like their speaking to five year olds.
Re Portland anthem- was that forgotten lyrics or just supposed to be a ridiculous anthem? Way people in background were acting I thought maybe it was ridiculous.
Re Pete Smith ‘Dude Looks Like A Lady’- glad he seemed to get into it, and didn’t have that bad of a voice. Nothing worse than when comedy tries to pull something like this off and they don’t have someone in there willing to go for it and it just falls flat on its face.
Re ‘I love rock n’ roll’- I think she missed some lyrics. Smith was better. She looks like she’s trying to read off a karaoke machine sitting at her feet. Good effort at least.
Re ‘It’s Academic’ parody- some made me snicker, like the Batman and Robin question, and Volvo being the capital of Sweden.
Re warranties- a lot of the time over here if a product fails when it is no longer under warranty there is nothing you can do about it. There are cases I imagine where if a person complains enough and makes enough of a nuisance of themselves the company might do something about it just to get rid of them, but otherwise you’re on your own. Most of the time the extra warranty offered by the store isn’t worth anything because there are so many little clauses that void the warranty or this or that bit isn’t covered. There is one retailer over here, Best Buy, that deals with electronics and some appliances that is horrible about that, or if you take a computer or system in for a minor repair and they manage to completely mess it up they are good about saying it isn’t their fault and they aren’t liable. Think there is a form you sign to that affect. Best thing to do is just never take your stuff there for repairs.
Re South Africans kid/goat- I misread what you had written. Guess was reading it to fast and my mind went to a country instead of a continent.
My guess is goat farmers would use it since a baby goat is a called a kid. One of those that wonder how it got from meaning baby goat to young human. Maybe it started out a pet name for someone’s child, or a way of calling a child a brat because they were behaving like a baby goat. The flow of language.
Re shrinking tornado alley- beats me. I guess because it isn’t an official designation for and subject to whoever is coming up with the map at the time and where they decide to focus in more.
Re modern dance music in trendy clothing stores- the clothing store is probably targeting teenage girls and hoping to be seen as THE place to buy items, and most dance music has an upbeat that makes you energized so you have more energy to shop with and spend more money.
Re geo-blocking- one of the most evil things on the net, and serves little purpose. Would think in the long run companies would be better off without the geo-block to get their product out to more people.
Re US gun control- as predicted, not in the news any more. Enough time has passed and it people are content to forget about it for a while. The most you hear is every now and again one of the victims that survived Sandy Hook or the Aurora theater shooting comes on the news to show the progress in healing they’ve made and/or the foundation they’re working on setting up to help others that have survived gun violence.
Re alternative solutions for rape cases- seems like a way for people not to have to go through the trauma of the court case if they choose not to. On one hand I can understand how going through all that and not getting justice would be just as traumatizing and possibly more so than the rape. At the same time, I don’t know how much good it would do overall.
Re schools- paragraph 3? How it doesn’t matter if principals have more control rather than a central body? I was interested how academic achievement wasn’t the first thing parents were looking for. But it was basically drilled into me that you go to school to learn; everything else comes after that.
Link in case you need it.
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/school-compet ition-a-myth-20130711-2pqtf.html
re word count- how does google docs get nearly a 400 word difference? Can’t be spaces or characters – it would be a much larger number. Hm.
Word Count (MS Word): 2502
Word Count (GoogleDocs): 2526
Wouldn’t think counting would be that hard. From college experience, I know Word is accurate.
re your computer’s suicide...you weren’t abusing it before it took its own life, were you? Didn’t call it stupid or anything like that, did you? Words can hurt Libra!
Now that you’re actually in the market for a new laptop (?) I was hoping you’d do all the hard work re informing me about the options for Intel motherboards! Like I said in my previous post: “Be curious how much the latest gen Intel chip with the Iris Pro HD 5200 costs.” If it’s too much hassle getting this information, fair enough, but I was just curious. Like I said, it’s the top of the range mobo for laptops and Charles Wright wrote that it will suit everyone but that small % of hardcore gamers who need a discrete graphics card. Also read that it’s a powerful mobo, so it sounds like it could handle some of that power use kind of stuff which you mentioned...was it Adobe or something? Sorry, forget > oh, see it now, Photoshop...that mobo above sounds like it would be ideal for something like that...also apparently it’s 3D capable and high res too, maybe 4k or something...as in using more than one monitor to get higher resolution. But you say you’re going for Mac...their ‘thing’ was to not crash like Windows (blue screen of deat etc.) but I have been in Apple stores and used their computers...and they freeze! Have to reboot. Macs often seem to have the sub-bleeding-edge components compared to Windows laptops etc...i.e. being one or more rungs off the top tier graphic cards or mobos etc.
As for sticking with HDD, from what I’ve read, having a SSD for your operating system really brings your PC to life...it allows your computer to ‘wake up’ and operate within about 10 seconds or so. If you have a HDD, that takes minutes, doesn’t it? Macs have hybrid drives in any case, I think...mixing the fast start up times of SSD with the low cost of HDD storage.
Only mentioned Linux because it’s free, so if money is an issue you could save over a $100 by opting for that over a Windows. Some Linux distributions (distros) are very user friendly (apparently...I don’t know!) and are meant to look very Windows like. The Ubuntu distro is one such example. They’re becoming more Windows like as far as privacy goes to, so maybe falling out of favour with users...the Mint distro is based on the Ubuntu distro but doesn’t have that issue. The issue with Ubuntu is that they tied your search to one or both of Amazon and Facebook, I think...so those companies got data back to them on your searches. You can turn that off, however, I have read. And Mint doesn’t have that issue.
As for Windows 8, have read that they similarly got criticism for making their interface geared towards tablet users at the expense of their desktop users. There was a way to bring back the old style desktop environment with Windows 8 and I think that there is an updated version of Windows 8 with that option already enabled, so you don’t have to tinker trying to find it as with the original release (I think).
re updated Word, I can see how moving features around can be annoying, but do you also find that they now have obscure symbols for some of these functions which you have no idea what they do?
re fire tornadoes in Alaska...summer, yeah? I have no idea whether I’d be able to pick the difference between those two seasons in any case, especially if I was dumped there in summer...assuming it is still pretty cold in either case!
re stupid passwords...I’ve been guilty of that in the past...years ago. Have read how people are the weakest link though...hackers...what’s the phrase? “social” hacking or something? I.e. they call up a company’s reception pretend to be an employee and just get the reception or whatever to give up some useful information which will allow them to hack the company or prepare the way. That was in the days of Captain Crunch, I think. Nowadays it’s issues like people at work accessing dodgy sites which compromises a company’s security protocols.
Anyway, I feel your pain re too many passwords. I think that the services which manage your passwords and create really strong ones only work on one device, perhaps...could be wrong. Someone complained in an article recently about this mentioning how people are expected to remember the passwords of years old accounts when they have to call up about something.
Maybe it was in the Green Guide but it was mentioned that it’s no longer a no no to have your passwords written down...maybe this is for home...as in it’s unlikely to be an issue for someone to break into your home and steal your passwords to hack your computer. No doubt a different matter in the work environment.
Some people on this site have posted threads about their post history disappearing when they log here with other sites’ accounts, like Facebook etc. That seems pretty risky...hack Facebook, and a lot of other accounts are vulnerable. Replies that I’ve read suggest that your post history still exists, but that you have to log in with your original details (not via Facebook ID/Password etc.).
re games...think I mentioned getting a tablet as part of my new phone service. Downloaded what looks like being a Scrabble rip-off. Paid for an upgrade to that. Don’t mind that...playing on Very Hard and occasionally winning...annoyingly sometimes I start off red hot and am spanking the AI but it unrelentingly comes up with big scoring words. Learned new words though…”ee” (yuh!), “ai”. Sucks when I use words that are common but aren’t allowed whilst the AI uses obscure words no one uses...or it uses Scottish words...in which case why can’t use other foreign language words? Recently downloaded from PSN “Hotline Miami” which is a critically acclaimed game, apparently. Think it registers as 1080 resolution on my tv when I start it...but it looks like those old pre-PSOne games...not sure if 16 bit is the right phrase...hmm...16 bit animation in 1080! It’s a shooter. Alternates between frustrating as Hell and fun.
re porn in background of news cross...yeah, I seem to remember hearing that guy (I think) on a talk back station saying that it was work related email he opened. Not as bad as the You Tubes I saw when looking for that...apparently a lot of stuff of a hardcore nature being seen in the background of news programmes...have read stories of similar stuff...maybe techies broadcasting hardcore porn because they have it on their laptop or whatever and when the hook up to a company’s PC or whatever they ‘stream’ their own content, accidentally or whatever.
re you wondering why news programmes have people in background of crosses...actually, I wonder about the whole “let’s present the news standing up!” movement. Think there have been some examples of news broadcasts in public places not being without incident...which is hardly surprising!
I’m schtaggered you watch Top Gear UK! What’s that all about? You’re a female of the opposite sex...why cars? Or do you have a crush on one of the hosts? I used to watch that when it was on SBS, which is a government funded ‘ethnic’ type network. Does have ads now...has done for years. It was very popular on that network. A regular commercial network poached that show and I haven’t really seen it since...they would really ply the ep with ads...think you’d get the show running for around 90 minutes, just so that they could fit in the ads. Think I only watched the show once on that new network...a James Bond special...not sure if I watched it all...may have conflicted with something else at the time...think I tried to record a repeat...maybe on a PVR which committed suicide, so lost to me. Did you know that Richard was brain damaged during that show? Read an interview with him afterwards...think he was in an F1 car or something...McLaren. Actually thought of getting a driving sim because it featured the Top Gear racing track...I enjoyed that segment of the show...celebrities featuring on the show’s leaderboard for fastest times. There was some publicity about The Stig’s identity, too. Do remember them reviewing an Australian car...called it big and dumb but otherwise liked it. Car makers here are making news...Ford is closing down or at least not manufacturing cars here anymore. Holden is the local franchise of GM...known as GMH here...or at least used to be. For years they’ve been using US motors...since that’s the heart of a car, I don’t really consider them Australian. Apparently in the 1970s one of Ford or Holden or Chrysler had the world’s fastest production car but Government moral panic saw that nipped in the bud. I think that the Interceptor in the original Mad Max movie is now internationally famous...that’s the black car that Max drives.
re cheap US homes...I highly recommend the excellent docu series The Ascent Of Money. One ep is devoted to the housing bubble in the US. Was one scene of a ghost suburb, practically...land bought for crazy prices and now no one living there...no one ever did live there. Forget the details of that, but illuminating series….think they covered NINJAs...we’ve discussed that here in the past, from memory.
re China real estate bubble, that particular You Tube didn’t play, the 60 minutes one. Have been stories over here to similar affect...from memory, sort of government fiscal stimulus or something like that...but they’re just white elephants. Do remember stories here from decades ago re Australian entrepreneurs who went bankrupt. You’d here the line about if you owe the bank a $100,000 you have a problem but if you owe the bank one billion dollars the bank has a problem! Think that applies to China and the US...China has invested billions if not multiples of that in the US...if the US walked away from those debts, China would be in trouble. There was a story in the news recently about a rich Chinese guy turning the top of an apartment skyscraper into a jungle like dwelling. Eventually the authorities listened to the people and made them undo all that. I often say ironically that China is due for a Communist revolution. Their government now blocks the US sites which reported that Chinese officials have billions of dollars squirrelled away.
re Mr. Speedo’s death stare...had to see that first clip I posted for the context...I sort of sympathise with him re being grilled over this, but it shows he’s not really a smooth operator...I couldn’t imagine Obama doing that kind of thing. You’ll notice I used the phrase “death stare”...some Australian satirists used it re another conservative politician in recent times...the clip below features the original incident but you can skip their satirical bit afterwards if it doesn’t interest you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7n2s6m-HbE
I think ages ago I wanted to link to a British sketch show which had a humourous running joke about a televised death stare tournament….in cartoon form...can’t remember the name of the damned show though to link to it!
Funnily enough, when I started typing “Julie Bishop” into You Tube, it automatically added “death stare”! And this short vid also appears as a hit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dMJJYTZuIU
Speaking of unflattering footage...when the then former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was destabilising the new female Prime Minister from his own party, it looks like someone from his own party leaked the following footage of the then Prime Minister Rudd having a fit over what he was expected to say in Chinese (he actually speaks the language!). No doubt it was meant to harm his efforts to get back into the top job. I’ll edit in some more on local politics at the end if you are interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeF41_coSX8
re Amish IT...are you always so literal? I think that you hit on the motivation for the sketch...i.e. that he gave a good job interview...that seems to me where the sketch arose from. Personally comedy doesn’t have to be “funny because it’s true”. Maybe that’s a difference between American and English senses of humour? That’s the usual dichotomy between senses of humour that I come across. Even though Monty Python don’t seem to be so funny as their reputation suggests that they should be, my favourite sketch by them is their absurd one, below, which I may have posted before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhJQp-q1Y1s
With something like that I don’t really get caught up in the whole “Well, in what circumstance would something like that ACTUALLY happen?”. I go with the flow! Hmm...I think you were saying that you liked The Elegant Gentlemen’s sketch re an office massacre? Actually, with that sketch it didn’t really seem to be coming from anywhere real, so I didn’t find it funny at all...personal boundaries of ‘common sense’ or something.
re key party sketch, it was long but I liked it...it sustained its length in my view. I was actually wondering how it was going to end...I thought the guy was making a mistake so the ending made sense to me (being logical)...not that I know much about car keys...don’t know if the explanation was plausible or not. Did you your jaw drop when the guy was showing the other man his fellatio technique? I was like “Oh...my...God!” I think that type of comedy is called “the comedy of humiliation” or something...attributed to the original version of The Office, I think. That Australian sketch show seemed to take it to weirder realms and more R rated, perhaps.
I didn’t mind that Sacajawea clip...I watch the show and it’s ‘watchable’ without really being the kind of stuff I’d imagine working as a You Tube...i.e. it’s not hilarious and self-contained...more amusing, if you know what I mean. Kind of like those Australian mockumentaries by Chris Lilley. I think Robert Redford is a fan of his work. I’ve watched all his stuff but I like the fact that his series are quite short...not US style 24 eps a series for the rest of your life...just in and out...surgical strike like. re Portland anthem, I think the mayor was ‘winging’ it. That kind of stuff amuses me...I was actually expecting to cringe as anthems usually make me cringe but the fact that is was so absurd rescued it for me.
re Pete Smith sings “Dude looks like a lady”...I think what I remember liking about his awful style probably came from the comedy radio show that he featured in...maybe he sang Simple Mind’s “Don’t you forget about me” and he had this really tuneless way of singing the “la la la la” bit in that song which absolutely destroyed the original...can’t seem to find online though...the radio show does come up on You Tube, but not that...maybe it’s a different song or something.
Same goes for “It’s academic” parody...maybe I have in mind a parody by the same guys of “Wheel of fortune”...I seem to remember them having face palmingly easy phrases to guess and those guys just being beyond moronic in the guess that they made...since I can’t find a You Tube, say something like this: “A popular sci-fi classic : _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _”...and you could get an answer like “Bridge on the River Kwai” or “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest”. Maybe you had to be there? Anyway, re the parody I linked to...I’d say that they cut and pasted their bits onto actual footage of the show. Managed to work out one of them was saying every now and again...when they got asked maths questions, the one on the left was trying to be helpful re quesiton on how much a certain number of items cost...he kept going on about if they were paying for vegetables - I think - they were being ripped off...the guy he was trying to help actually was smart and gave the right answers! Also got a bit of a laugh out of the female comedian telling the host of the show that she was pregnant to his child! He gave her team an extra 10 points!
re warranty issues...like I said, over here, according to The Checkout, some items can be compensated for if they fail even though they may be outside of warranty...I’m thinking of stuff like white goods etc...where you expect to get some sort of life span...longer than the actual warranty. I’ve also avoided paying for extra money for more warranty ‘protection’ which more stores are into now. It sort of seems to me that this implies that the product is shonky. Also mentioned getting redress when a PVR was outside of warranty...got it replaced...think along the lines mentioned above. Does that sound like more consumer protection than the US offers? There have been stories here in the past about how Australia needed “lemon” laws like the US has.
re gun laws...forget that US senator or whatever shot in the head a little while back...if an Australian politician was attacked with a spoon over here I’m pretty sure that spoons would be outlawed by now! Really demonstrates how skewed the US is that even with a politician nearly being murdered, there is still no will to tackle gun ownership.
re giving school principals greater power over here...you’re question wasn’t phrased well, but if you’re asking “Why on Earth does it not matter if school principals have more power than a central body?” (assuming here that you do think it’s a good thing that principals have that power) I think the gist of it is that here are two models: 01) the principal has the power over the school and 02) a central body has the power over the school. For BOTH models, it doesn’t matter a jot as to student outcomes. Think I mentioned earlier that both models are ideological...01) is of the Right, and 02) is of the Left. NEITHER outperformed the other. There was a story recently about how kids nowadays are praised to easily, with detrimental results.
I mentioned the business report in the News over here which features some interesting graphs and charts presented by Alan Kohler...I made a note of one of them...think it related to something we’ve discussed earlier…the graph I saw on 16/08 had to do with comparative house prices here (hmm...his graphs aren’t dated...probably missing the one that I wanted...but since I can’t find it, interesting one re the number of minutes it takes to buy a Big Mac at the minimum wage in various countries (that’s currently near the top of page 3...and today is 04/09)
http://www.alankohler.com.au/
You can't create a post without a body
re word count difference...this is a big issue for me at sites like this...I post a lot of reviews and often I exceed my ‘1,000’ word limit here (are you not astounded?). The annoying this is this site does not tell you how many word IT counts towards your review...but the review will be under 1,000 words on Word. Just btb, I’ve recentlyish created a list of the greatest tv shows on this site. Anyway, someone on another site explained discrepancies in word counts this way...they say that they were a proofreader:
“I'm guessing the filters are set to key-strokes. In a simple essay, you can add 20-25% to the word count, so 800 to 850 words would prob. equate to the 1,000 limit you described...So a “word” in MS Word is any letter, number or symbol, but not a space or return. “a” counts as one “word”, so does “nonexistentialism”. “1” is one “word” so is “1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000”. “?” is one “word”. So wildly varying numbers of keystrokes to create 1 “word”.
A “keystroke” is anytime you use a key on the keyboard. A space is a keystroke, as is “return” or “enter” (when creating a new paragraph).
I suspect that website filters are set to size or capacity which again comes back to # of keystrokes used in the document.”
With IMDB, I think their 1,000 word limit equates roughly to 980ish words in Word...it varies, I think, depending on what I type.
P.S. Absurdly, each reply here gets narrower and narrower...must get to a point where each line is one word long soon...and a light year long!
P.P.S. another edit in: Mr. Speedos is Australia’s new PM. It looks like Kevin wasn’t the messiah! Pretty sure we’ve discussed the US’ whacked electoral college system (rort) here. Australia had an interesting result too. The senate, which elects members differently to how the House Of Reps had a handful of bizarro parties get up...usually the minor parties like the Democrats (and mroe recently the Greens) got a few seats here and held the balance of power. Now it’s automative parties and sporting parties...the auto party guy actually seems to be surprised to have gotten in...like he only ran for a joke! The interesting thing is that I heard some senators only got a 100 votes for them or something...but the only figure I’ve seen in print is something like 1,900 votes getting some guys in...one senator got 0.2% of the vote and another 0.5% of the vote. It’s the preference deals which got them in. If a party doesn’t have 50% of the vote - I think - then other parties’ preferences come into play. Which is why someone who got over 20% of the vote, say, could be beaten by someone with only 0.2% of the vote (I think). So, maybe there will be some electoral reform as far as that goes...was suggested decades ago, but the hurdle of a party needing at least 10% of the vote to get elected was seen as targeting the Democrats, I think (only heard of this on the radio today > 10/09). Possible revised hurdle might be something like 5%...but that’s just the punditry guessing. Another odd thing...the list of candidates in places was over 100! The ballot came with a magnifying glass! Radio today mentioned only around 3% of voters numbering every box. The alternative was just to put one number above the line and let preferences flow according to their party’s position...I think. Do American’s have different systems for each house?
Word count (according to Google...not on PC with Word at the moment): 3,896 >
Word's count: 3,702.
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Re computer suicide- I learned back with our first Windows PC that the nicer you are to the computer, the longer it last and tends to give you less hassle. Whoever says otherwise hasn’t had to try to keep one working. It was technically my fault, though. I have known for a long time that it didn’t react well to playing longish vids online, but played one anyway, and when I thought shutting it down and let it be for awhile, I signed the death certificate.
Re Macs- don’t know about how they have them set up in their stores, but I can’t remember every having my freeze on me, and that was over a six year period of fairly heavy use. There are rumours running around the net that a new Pro will likely be out by the end of this year, but, obviously don’t know all the specifics yet. The big thing I’ve heard is that it is supposed to have an Intel Haswell in it, which is supposed to make the computer run faster, smoother, and help with graphics. From little I’ve looked elsewhere, Haswell seems almost standard, or at least available, in most machines are coming out. One story I read was speculating that the new Mac BookPro will have displays capable of 4K.
Supposed to be some kind of big Apple meeting/announcement on 22 October where the company will put out more official information. The Gold Master version of the new OS was released around 7 October, so at the very least that should be out soon. Will figure out what I’m going to do after the news from that meeting.
Re SDD vs HDD vs Fusion- currently, the laptop line I’m looking at doesn’t have a fusion option. If it comes to the Mac BookPro, and it is again rumoured to, and is priced decently, might get it. Currently, though, putting in a 512GB SSD into the Pro costs an extra $700 US, where as it comes standard with a 500GB, and can upgrade that to 1 TB for an extra $200 US. For that price difference I can wait a minute or two, if it really is even that long.
Re Linux- the big thing I have against Linux is that if I want to go out and buy a program for my computer, I don’t want to be guessing if it will work with the OS. Windows and Mac are standard so if something says it will work with it, you can assume it will work….usually. We are talking about computers after all. With Linux, I haven’t seen many programs that say they will work with it, and maybe it is better than I’m aware of, but I’m just not comfortable enough to try it, but did a search and found roughly 10 different supposed Linux OS, at least pretty sure they were OS and not just like bit torrent download links. I’m not enough of a geek to understand what some of these programmers are on about.
Re obscure Word symbols- think some of it is new operations that weren’t available before and whereas before certain operations were only accessible through menus, they tried to make everything have its own button.
Re Alaska- it’s warm enough in summer for people to wear shorts and short sleeve tees, and only a few hours or darkness, and in some areas I think it only reaches twilight before the sun comes back up again.
Re accessing dodgy sites- at one time porn sites were supposedly the worst for giving a user viruses, Trojan horses, etc, but read a story, probably about a year ago, that not just regular image searches are the worst offenders.
Re logging on via Facebook and posts disappearing- if they log on through Facebook, it is technically a different account. Some of them are supposed to connect up two existing accounts, but doesn’t always work. With Facebook constantly changing their supposed privacy policy, automatically changing users settings, and selling different info to third parties, I don’t know how anyone can feel comfortable linking everything back to their Facebook account.
Re present news standing up- For a while was seeing all the news programmes transferring over to that. Now the evening and afternoon ones are back to sitting down, and the morning ones seem to be the only ones standing – maybe it is to make sure that they stay awake since they go on air at 4 am.
Re Top Gear UK- I was introduced to the show via one of the “Top Fail” specials, so it was just a bunch of things going wrong, catching on fire, sinking, etc. From that I started watching the normal eps, and while I don’t always pay full attention to some of the car reviews, I get a kick out of the hosts. I like sarcastic humour, and it’s enjoyable to watch people that are having fun doing their jobs, if you can really call what they do a job. More getting paid a ridiculous sum for mucking about. As unflattering as it was to the US, one of my favourite eps is the first road trip they did through the southern US that was aired as part of S9.
Had heard about Richard’s accident. A tire blow-out on a jet powered dragster. Don’t know mentally how much damage he’s sustained, read somewhere that he had short term memory issues for a while, but he’s really lucky he wasn’t seriously hurt or killed.
Re China- have heard a few stories about the rich Chinese officials that have money squirreled away in the past year or so. Some of the stories suggest that the people are more aware of what is going on than the media leads you to believe. Also heard how the common person is getting fed up with how some of the families of the rich officials act and what they are allowed to get away with.
Re US debt- guess we’ll see shortly how that will play out. This shutdown and possible default is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. What doesn’t make sense to me, the segments of government that are closed down are supposedly the “unnecessary” ones. This includes national parks, monuments, and museums. Now these are places that people go to spend money, including foreign visitors, that all goes to the government. It also includes things like the Center of Disease Control, which is in charge of keeping an eye on diseases, tracking their movement, some vaccine issues, and dealing with any outbreaks. (Hell, that’d be a way right now to really attack the US: spread some kind of major viral disease. With the CDC closed it’d take such a long time to realize it containment would be somewhere between next to impossible to impossible.) The people that run drug trials that include the trail drugs for cancers are shutdown. People that issue permits that people need to do some jobs, including small businesses, are closed, thus stopping some non-government people from working. However, Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court are all still being paid. It is a temper tantrum between Congress and the President that caused this mess, so they should not be getting paid while this is still going on. The Supreme Court could be recessed until this is over without pay and no one would probably even notice. They don’t have anything pressing on the docket.
Re Julie Bishop- gotta love a politician that is willing to come on a show and play like that. Love the laser death stare.
Re PM Kevin Rudd vid- had a hard time hearing what he was saying especially at the beginning. Could hear him complaining about a translator.
Re comedy- thought that fish slap sketch was longer, or something they went back to several times with it being different until the one guy slapped the other one into the water. Find Monty Python okay, but there are times I don’t understand how they got as big as they did.
Amish IT just seemed so random to me, and one of those skits where one actor gets why it’s stupid, and the rest think it is great. To me it was in the same sort of thing as “Parks and Rec” or “The Office”, US version.
Re key party- it just seemed overdone to me with how the guy was caring on that they were going to be his keys. I used to have a keychain that fell off all the time, so that is perfectly plausible to me.
Re US warranty protections- I think a lot of the time a company can get away with giving someone a brush off a couple of times, but when the person starts getting aggressive or threatening to file a suit the company gives in since it is easier to give the person what they want versus getting caught up in the court issues. There is an old saying over here “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” and that is what it comes down to a lot of the time.
Re guns- “there is still no will to tackle gun ownership” – that sums it up pretty much. The senator that was shot, Gabrielle Giffords, is pushing for gun control. Hasn’t gotten anywhere, obviously, since we had the naval yard shooting in mid-September.
Re Big Mac Index- interesting idea. Economics is not my strong point by any standard (still not sure how I got a C in that class instead of the F that I thought was going to be my grade), but I want more info on how this is calculated and where the basis are. For one, I don’t know how they can compare a US Big Mac with and India Big Mac since the India one is essentially a veggie burger, and I know that other cultural differences exist from country to country. The different ingredients would cause price differences alone. Unless they’re saying that they take the US price of a US Big Mac and then take the exchange rate of that and then figure the work time at minimum wage to earn that amount. Looked at The Economist website, who supposedly came up with this in 1986, but that wasn’t very clear either. Found a calculation explanation on investopedia. Makes more sense, but don’t think enough factors are taken into account for this.
Didn’t much like Kohler’s site. Graphs need context to make sense, and he just throws them out there. If you want to make sense of anything on that blog you need to try to track down his source.
Re word count- the keystroke theory makes a lot of sense.
Re narrow replies- I’ve found, at least with the computers I’ve used, that if you put it on ‘inline’ it will use the entire space instead of narrowing down.
Re Mr Speedo- saw that story on the news awhile back, and that Indonesia was not happy about his theories of how to stop the boats. Indonesia kind of saying it’s your problem not ours, and you can’t prove they come from here.
Started recording BBC World News on BBCA and watching it later in the day, and is amazing actually getting world news and having a news programme that actually covers world news instead of just a programme that only covers world news if there is some kind of direct American interest.
Re election systems- there are different term lengths, but the way the House and the Senate are elected is the same. The Parties have primaries where there are several different candidates for the same party; the winner from that primary then goes on to compete in the election for the open seat. The smaller parties, like the Libertarians, the Constitution party, and any others that usually don’t have a large enough showing in one area to have a primary (unless there is some kind of one that is more private that doesn’t get any coverage) will sometimes have a person on the ballot, and there are different rules in different states as to how they get on the ballot.
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I did think about editing my last post before you replied to mention that I had glanced at a recent APC article which stated that the Intel chip I have been mentioning lately (i.e. Iris Pro HD 5200) was pretty rare for PCs (laptops?) and that the new Mac laptops would have them...presumably as an optional extra? Looks like you found that out in any case! So, is it an optional extra or standard for the price? You mentioned the 4k resolution stat...I mentioned that for the Iris Pro before...don’t think that the common garden variety new Intel chip has that...but I could be wrong...no doubt that info is on an old APC mag I have lying around. Anyway, in the past, I have sat down in an Apple store to surf the web - when the ‘Geniuses’ bother me I just say I’m trying it out! Hmm...think South Park had an ep on these Geniuses - and more than once the Mac would freeze and you’d have to reboot...which the kind of issue that Macs marketed themselves (or their fan boys did) as not having, when compared to Wintel. You sound like you keep really close tabs on the Mac rumours/news. I take an interest but I don’t chase that info up...happy to read about it in the Green Guide or PC mags like APC or whatever.
As for your laptops death...probably I’m similarly at fault, if memory serves, re PS3 issues I had...just ignoring the console playing up...I thought it was the game I had inside with the problems. If your electronics sounds like it is possessed by demon spawn, that’s probably when you should take it to the doctor!
With PCs, the argument goes that you can build a killer unit for a fraction of the cost of a Mac, and that’s probably true...as it is for a DIY PC vs an Alienware build, which paedophiles love apparently (mentioned that before re the show Dexter). So, you say that Apple will charge $700 for a 500 Gb SSD. Recently it was announced that a smoking hot SSD was now available with 1 Tb of storage...by Samsung. I see an ad for it with a price of $649...a saving of $250 to the ‘special’ that Apple is giving. That’s the kind of thing that I mean about value for money. However, have seen Apple mags with ads for non-Apple products of that sort for no doubt cheaper prices than what Apple provides. Just saying that from what I’ve read having a SSD is a massive boost in speed...and if you can’t get good value for a large storage one, perhaps a small SSD for your software with a large regular HD for everything else might be the way to go. Reviews of Samsung’s SSD I’ve seen have seen it ranked as the best SSD on the market, as far as speed etc. goes...or at least one of the best products.
With Linux, there are loads of different brands for that OS. Mentioned before that something like Ubuntu is modelled closely on Windows, so it’s more ‘friendly’ towards people coming in from that OS. Also mentioned that that currently has a Search feature with shares your information with the sites that it uses to help you search for stuff, like Amazon, say. You can disable that. Mint is a variant of Ubuntu and doesn’t have that Search setting. From what I’ve heard, both those variants are extremely popular for the OS and designed to be easy to use. Apparently Mint has a lot of software ready to work once it’s installed but with Unbuntu you have to download it via the OS itself...badly phrased...something along the lines of you can look for software once you install it, but then it will point you to where you download it to install it. Think it may have something to do with copyright or licensing issues...not sure. Other Linux variants are really hardcore and you’d be a fool to try them if you weren’t a Linux geek...something like Gentoo...if I remembered that name properly...apparently once you start the install process you pretty much create the OS that you want...so you have to know how to go through that convoluted set up process to install it.
With Word symbols...I just remember being able to easily find certain functions before...it would be on the main screen, I think - no dipping into menus...or not much - whereas now the symbols used have absolutely no connection with what the function is...so it’s completely baffling and off putting.
With the prolonged sunlight in places like Alaska at times, wasn’t their thriller based on this phenomena? US movie, I think. Would feel weird going to bed with the sun still up in any case.
Every other year I see a story on Yahoo’s front page about the worst searches to try in order to get malware on your computer...was one some weeks or months back. Apparently celebrities are the worst terms to enter into a search engine. Guessing now, but maybe doing a search for Miley Cyrus now (under Images?) would more than likely put you through to a dodgy site which will infect your computer. Just Googled on this now...McAfee says Lily Collins is the worst name to type into an Image search for malware. 14.5% chance of getting malware, the article said. Saw a link to another story on Google which asserted that religious sites are the worst. Hmm! That story was in the WSJ. It mentions those sites having ads for anti-malware software...and that’s the actual threat! I.e. the fake anti-malware software.
You mentioned Facebook’s ever changing privacy policy...like I said, I recently got a tablet and have a few apps. Often get notices of Updates. It really surprises me how often these are for things like using your device to take photos...WTF? I can sort of understand that for security software with anti-theft capabilities, but for a game? Sheesh! I’m ignoring a lot of those Update notices even though I doubt that my security app would block them...I’m just staggered at the kind of stuff those apps demand to know of you. Have heard bad things about Apple’s app store too...from memory, stuff about your personal info being shared by apps you download...i.e. your Apple info is accessed and maybe other apps you don’t have can access that info from apps you have installed...I’m a bit vague on the actualities of this though as it’s not fresh in my memory.
Top Gear was mentioned on a tv talkback segment on the radio today...the guest was saying that the cast now has a big ego and it’s not as good as a result. Didn’t the US first do their own version of that show? That happened in Australia, when it moved to real commercial tv...or maybe it didn’t...the one on the ethnic network floundered, I think, and the new version on commercial tv with new hosts wasn’t killing in the ratings...not sure if that is still on air though, as I don’t even watch the UK original. Did hear that console games like Gran Turismo and Forza, I think, included the race track from Top Gear as part of its game...that kind of interests me, although the actual course is no longer fresh in my memory. I used to have a F1 game for the N64...made me motion nauseous! I remember hating the courses from Melbourne, Monaco and Japan...just hard to build up a head of steam and enjoy speeding. Not sure if it was the British or Canadia GP but one of those seemed really dangerous to me...as in you are going full throttle and it’s not clear where the track diverges into pit lane, from memory...thought that might get you killed. Funny how a game sort of made me an instant ‘expert’ on race tracks! Just btb, saw Rush yesterday...not a bad movie based on real life GP racers from the 1970s. Back to Top Gear...I used to like those celebrity drives around their circuit...occasionally they’d have a good guest on for a chat along with that too. On the ethnic station here, I think both James and Richard have had their own unrelated series aired there. Have also seen Jeremy’s books in book stores over here. Wish I could remember where I read the interview with Richard after his crash...made it clear that he was permanently affected by it and sort of got the impression it was hard for him to pass as ‘normal’ afterwards...did find this URL in a search though...he speaks of some of his issues:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1579785/Richard-Hammond-still-suffering-from-crash.html
You first watched Top Gear due to them being in America or something? Have seen some eps of a series by something Theroux...an English guy who does a lot of docus in the US...I’ve watched his more salacious ones. Think I also may have seen his docu on “America’s most hated family” about those religious people who say God is punishing gays and war veterans etc. In case I haven’t, I also recorded that on my PVR as well as a follow up ep some years later, perhaps...just a pity my PVR isn’t working at the moment! Maybe it’s my tv...plus I forgot to take my remote with me when I moved house...d’oh!
With China, did I already say that they are ripe for a communist revolution, you’d think? Do remember years ago reading how Chinese newspapers would often incredible stories next to government announcements...say on UFOs or whatnot, for example. It was a way of undercutting the government announcement...kind of like “Obama avoids fiscal cliff...meanwhile in Utah, pigs seen flying at super sonic speeds”...if that makes sense.
As far as US monuments shutting down etc...I’m reminded of my favourite Sex Pistols song, “God save the queen”...where the lyric continues “because tourists are money”. Not sure if Johnny Rotten was the first person to formulate that connection, but still pretty impressive for a snotty punk! Did read an interesting article on this from a business writer for one of Murdoch’s tabloids here...thought that he really crossed the line as far as his anti-female PM of Australia bile when she was in charge...anyway...if you’re interested:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/driveby-analysis-misses-the-whole -us-story/story-fni0d8gi-1226741274631
Before I read that article it did occur to me that maybe trying to block an out of control maybe isn’t so crazy...as in, imagine if someone argued that Enron could continue...so long as it had a bigger loan. Prior to that I was thinking that the Reps were crazy...so, I’m sort of sitting on the fence on this one...with both ears to the ground...thinking that the Tea Pot Party is crazy...but maybe that there is a structural problem which does need to be addressed...but maybe not like this? Or maybe not?
With regard to You Tube of former Australian PM swearing...well, I suppose all that you need to know is that he is dropping F bombs left, right and centre for the speech written for him in Chinese...he’s complaining about the words that they use...too long and complex when a simpler form would be better for him...mind you, he is known for his prolixness...as he might say! Wish I could remember that technobabble phrase he is well known for...probably meaningless. Not sure if Obama ‘borrowed’ from Labor’s lingo as well...maybe Rudd stole it from the US...our Labor politicians used the phrase “Ladder of opportunity”...saw Obama use that recently...I think it requires the person saying that phrase to mime climbing up a ladder to illustrate the point.
Amish IT/Monty Python - the latter did strike me as dated at times when I saw sketches years ago. Have to say though that South Park often does get very stupid and maybe it’s not a million miles from the stupidity of the Amish IT guy...which made me laugh in any case. Not everything that they did made me laugh, but they did have an interesting skew on social mores at times. Your comment about the car key party was garbled...you’re saying that it was implausible for him to carry on like that? I’m sure that in real life people do act like dicks and it turns out for totally unjustifiable reasons...i.e. they made a mistake...they were human...who acted like dicks as a result.
I liked the phrase “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”...was going to attempt to do something I enjoyed seeing on the music quiz show “Spicks and specks” (an Australian rip off of the UK’s “Never mind the buzzcocks”) where English lyrics are Google translated into another language then translated back into English...but I think I’d have to do that multiple times and perhaps translate into further languages before coming up with comedy gold!
Big Mac Index - I got the impression that it measured apples with apples - junk food with junk food? - insofaras it measures the % of income it takes to purchase the same item in different countries...well, that’s what I’m guessing it does. There’s a Wikipedia entry for this Index in any case. Did you hear about that other theory which holds true thus far apparently re no two countries with McDonalds have ever gone to war (with each other, I’m guessing)? A sneaky American justrication to get their businesses established overseas? With Kohler’s site, I think those graphs appear after he brings them up in his business segment on the tv news...you get a bit more context in the news (hmm...edit in...seems I was wrong on this...that “49 minutes ago” graph I mention here somewhere appeared in the bulletin later that night...BUT, maybe he presented that in a bulletin before the main one at 7:00 p.m.). Interesting one the other day about stock market movements...currently the pattern is similar to previous ones in which the stock market collapsed...he wondered if history was about to repeat itself...he didn’t seem committed though. Looking at a site for his graphs I see one for the US debt ceiling...doesn’t work, apparently (dated “last week” and today is 17/10/2013):
http://www.eurekareport.com.au/graphs/list
Don’t currently see that graph re stock market up, but maybe the one of “3 days ago” (today) re “The Economist collectibles index” might - might - interest you. Was discussing a housing bubble over here but the graph for “49 minutes ago” suggests that that isn’t the case...and has some countries where it is the case.
Mr. Speedo and Indonesia...I don’t remember mentioning the latter here but he has made news on that front recently...basically apologising for his conduct when opposition leader. However, there is evidence that the Indonesian military actively facilitate people smuggling to Australia...there was a story over a week ago or whatever about dozens of people dying on their way here...they drowned off the coast of Indonesia. One would be immigrant said that Australia was at fault...but I thought since the boat sunk right near the Indonesian coast line that that was a stretch. There is a perception here - amongst people in marginal seats who politicians seek to attract - that we are being swamped by illegal immigrants...the recent sinking of a boat headed towards Italy puts our ‘problem’ into context, it’s argued. Have heard our current treasurer repeat the idiotic line that illegal immigrants are contributing to gridlock on the roads.
World news - I’m happy watching ABC news. SBS has more of a focus on world news but for me it’s too much international flavour. I don’t want the commercial network news programmes...don’t really care about cats stuck up trees!
Surprised that you didn’t have an instant opinion on politicians over here being elected with only about 0.5% of voters voting for them to represent them.
Was looking at a You Tube of “Smells like teen spirit” and I saw a related link which I thought might interest you...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS826PwLHdQ
Looked them up on Wiki and saw that they do a cover of the AC/DC classic “Highway to Hell” which has guitar legend Steve Vai on it. I see a video for that song on You Tube but doubt if Steve Vai is on it.
Almost forgot, you know that Gruen series over here re advertising etc? One of the panellists has a new series called “Redesign my brain”...and the first episode was brilliant. Some of the content on the first episode (of 3, I think), overlapped with stuff I’d seen on other docus, but he added extra stuff and it looks a terrific resource. ‘One of these days” I might try the stuff in the first episode (not sure if the next episodes will be as useful)...e.g. juggling is apparently good for your brain. He did all these computer exercises which make your reaction times faster and improve your peripheral vision too, etc. Fascinating stuff. No doubt he can boast about his achievements...he’s shown competing in a world memory competition where he has memorised a random card sequence from poker cards...he learned the technique in the show...so might have to give that a burl myself...one of these days. Btb, have heard how Nintendo’s brain training games are...useless. That’s why I’m keen to track down the computer exercises Todd played to improve his mental accuity. Not sure how ‘useful’ these achievements are...perhaps very...perhaps not...dunno.
Found a link via ABC’s website to some (all?) of these tests:
https://brainhq.positscience.com/default/start#assessment/todd *
Not sure how much of the programme is accessible via the ABC’s website (maybe via Web Extras?):
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/redesign-my-brain-with-todd-sampson/
First test - categorisation: I saw my ms time and I thought that was really good...but I was focused on speed and so made many mistakes at times...looks like I got a disastrous score first up...had to look up which percentile is the good one! Sheesh!!
“Your speed of thinking was 388 ms (milliseconds), putting you in the 1st percentile. Compare that to Todd’s original, which put him in the 62nd percentile.
Percentile scores compare you to everyone else who has taken the assessment. If you are in the 99th percentile, you are among the best.”
Second test - Attentional blink test:
“You got 98% correct, putting you in the 95th percentile. Compare that to Todd’s original score, which put him in the 64th percentile.
Percentile scores compare you to everyone else who has taken the assessment. If you are in the 99th percentile, you are among the best.”
Would say that there were other computer based tests which are not covered here...e.g the one to do with peripheral vision. Since my 1st test was a dee za ster, I have to say that it’s nice to get my first time on the 2nd test beat Todd’s improved 2nd time score on the test!
From memory, on that first test, Todd’s times for BOTH attempts was higher than my first time times...so...that’s something I can improve upon...just spend a fraction longer thinking...and not getting confused or flustered (the drill bit kinda sorta looks like a writing implement at times!).
Took that first test again...still got stuck in a rut at times where I got on a losing streak...but improved:
“Your speed of thinking was 194 ms (milliseconds), putting you in the 39th percentile. Compare that to Todd’s original, which put him in the 62nd percentile.”
What I’m really curious about is how useful these skills/improvements are. Any thoughts?
Found another note I made to bring up with you...re Movemeber, came across this interesting story on the concept if you are interested...about it’s foundation:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/bristling-with-success-from-a-fitzro y-bar-to-movember-20131002-2usub.html
Haven’t scared you off with my 1st test results, have I?
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P.S. re “*” mark for first brain test...I tried accessing that link the following day and it takes ages to load...might be dead now. So, I logged in (yes, I joined the site!) and tried finding it. Couldn’t find an exact match, but something similar is available...you see two shapes and you press one way if the colour matches and another way if it doesn’t. Still made heaps of mistakes in that test but - oddly - my ‘scores’ are much better. Different way of measuring scores now, but I’m getting good scores...got ⅘ stars then 5/5 stars...the text says:
“These stars show how your score compares to others. Five stars ranks you among the best.”
Huh. Weird that. My times are faster too, but I’m not a different computer now...not sure if pings come into it (re connection speed). Be good to know what percentile I’m in in any case. Today, I think, my baseline was 402 ms and my 5/5 score had a speed of 239 ms. If you’re interested, the test is called something like “Attention: Divided attention”.
Try this link if the first one is dead now:
https://brainhq.positscience.com/default/start
Again, I query the real world/practical effects of all this ‘training’. Still, prepared to give it a burl!
Edit in:
1) Are you feeling swamped with the amount of tv shows you are watching at the moment? I PVR a lot of the stuff I watch and it’s starting to get ridiculous now! Will be practical to cut down...something I was considering doing even before shows started returning. Here’s what I mean:
Sleepy Hollow - was watching this but on the assumption it was a one off series. Read that it got renewed...so, think I will drop it as it is a bit of a chore to watch. Fast tracked from the US and it’s now on break where you are...I removed it from my Series Record function.
Masters of sex - made a late decision to watch this and it’s good...will stick with it.
30 Rock/Breaking bad - now screening. At least I’ll get some respite next year!
Shameless - Hmm...this year, I think, the network ran two series back to back and it resumes tonight for the final series ever. Annoying that all the good shows are all on now!
Weeds - noticed that this resumes next week, I think...possibly the final ever series.
Gruen/Ja’mie - Last Gruen tonight, so that’s alright, and new Chris Lilley series starting...1st ep a bit of a chore...focus on one character for the entire series...fortunately it’s only 6 episodes long, I think, so will see how that goes.
Might watch Top Gear this Thursday (31/10/2013) - the tv guide review mentioned that he was oft-quoted in that appearance or something. Or I might just see if I can You Tube it.
Another issue - some weeks back there was an astounding news story here...about how Australia had a functional literacy rate amongst adults of around 50% or something. Could not believe it. How does the US compare? Found an entry for Wikipedia and it gives a figure of around 99% literacy for both Australia and US, so I’m not really sure where that news story was sourced from. Found a useful link on this anyway (it has text too)…
http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2012/09/07/3585457.htm
Just find that figure hard to believe!
Had a look at a Mac store’s brochures and they mentioned having the Haswell chip, but no specific information if it was the superior Iris Pro HD 5200.
Recently discovered the search engine duckduckgo.com. There thing is privacy. Their homepage can be clicked to give relevant info. They mention there how Google has “filter bubbles” (vice versa?), which means results are tailored to your profile, not usefulness. E.g. if you are Leftie with a social conscience, you will get relevant hits if searching the name of a country, wanting to learn or social unrest there or whatnot. Otherwise you might get links to holiday sites!
Lastly, was amused by The Roast’s take on the NSA’s phone hacking of foreign governments...I like the host’s impersonation of Angela Merkel!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAIBOEqjiJ0&t=6m16s
Does that link work for you?
Had another crack at that similar brain test to what Todd did...last time I did it I got 99 percentile...yuh...whatevs! Results just seem to random to me! I made less mistakes than 1st time, but still made a few mistakes...but the difference in outcome is huge!
Last edit (?) - Could have sworn that The Walking Dead was meant to be starting first week of November...didn’t see it in the tv guide though...the network, SBS TV, promoted it as “slow tracked from the US”! Yeah, it will be first series of that show. Missed the boat on that network for shows like Entourage and Community too.
The last ep of Gruen Planet last night (30/10/2013) was good...near the top of the show they showed a US ad for guns for kids...and women! Promoted as a “first” firearm for your kiddies! The host of the show joked something like “Your first body bag sold separately”! The next Canadian ad was funny...not sure that that PSA was technically rational, but it made me laugh. They finished the show with the ads which won their “Worst celebrity endorsement ever”...a two way tie...but they couldn’t show the entire ads for both as they were cigarrette products. MIght have found something the same or similar on You Tube…
The Flintstones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvt8skgm2l8
Couldn’t find an ad for cigarrettes though which were promoted by Daleks...a monster in Doctor Who...which btw, is getting a cinema release for one episode...might even be in 3D...not sure if I’ll see that...might watch it on the tele.
This probably won’t work if you are interested in watchin the ep...which did have a good The Pitch segment too...re where two ad agencies try and sell something undesirable...in this case, the end of advertising!
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/gruen-planet/
But hmm...here’s a link on You Tube for last week’s ep...maybe by the time you read this there will be one for s6 e8?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P0Rp5kPmaE
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Are your posts 1/2 and 2/2 supposed to be the same other than the few lines at the bottom? Just checking in case there was some fluke that happened.
Re Mac and Iris Pro- the Iris Pro chip is now standard in all MacBook Pro Retinas, and I think it is standard in the Macbook Air models as well. The big issue that popped up with the addition of the Iris Pro chip was most models lost a dedicated graphic chip. There is one model that also has a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M graphics chip. The picture overall is incredible. I have never had a Mac computer freeze on me where the whole computer had to be rebooted. There have been programmes that froze and need to be restarted, but not the whole computer.
As for being on top of the information, the only reason I’ve been up on it lately is because of needing to get a new computer. I had started to look into it a bit before my old one died because I knew it was going to need to be replaced, and then once it died it was a matter figuring out which way would be the best to go. So far battery life improvements were definitely worth waiting for. Top three peeves so far have been a) 15” screen is a big as they go (which admittedly happened a couple years ago, but still would have preferred a 17”), b) when you close the lid, there is no indicator light to let you know if the computer is asleep or turned off, which may not seem like a big deal, but I’m one of those people who leave the computer on pretty much all the time, and it would be nice to know if the battery had drained and I need the cord before getting comfortable to work on it, and c) no internal cd/dvd drive. The last one ticks me off the most. In the last MacBook generation there was an option for a MacBook Pro that didn’t have the Retina display, but still had an internal cd/dvd drive, and with this new generation the only non-Retina, internal cd/dvd drive is a 13” model, which I would not be able to stand. I almost always have multiple screens open and even the 15” is proving to be tight on space for it. If I had known that this new generation wasn’t going to have the internal cd/dvd drive, I think I would have bought one of the previous gen models, especially being someone who still prefers to buy cds over downloading songs, and REALLY wants a physical disc with a software purchased and not just a product key to type in and download for a website.
Out of curiosity, you mentioned that you were using a tablet now. What do you think of mobile internet sites vs the ones you access via computer? Or does it bother you at all. I’ve got an iTouch that I’ve had a couple years now, and since about mid August had been my primary source of internet. Found the mobile sites tended to be a pain in the a*** to get around for the most part, and sometimes unable to find info I was looking for unless I switched it to the computer version of the site, where there are size issues obviously and constant scrolling, or crashing safari because of too many graphics or vid ads or vids on the computer version.
Re possessed sounds coming from electronics- in my case I knew it was my cooling fans acting up, but I hadn’t realized one had completely died. If I had known one wasn’t working at all I probably would have tried to save it earlier. End result the hard drive wound up getting trashed. Given how long it had been going on I’m just thankful that I had backed up pretty much everything on the computer. Lost a bunch of bookmarks of sites that only visited once a year or so, but fun to go to, and luckily only two small projects of which there are hard copy versions. Started religiously backing up downloaded music to an external HD last year, I think it was, so at least not out anything that way.
Re SSD vs HDD- Mac has taken away my choice. SSD now only option for 15” Pro. Think on the desktop computers there is still an option.
Re building own computer- when the new MacBook Pro models were announced, I think it was mid/late October, and when I saw the changes beyond the Haswell, I started to look into building my own. The sad thing was that the only mags at the bookstores that talked about building one were all from the UK, except for one which was for super hard-core gamers, which anything in that would be complete overkill for my use. Book wise there wasn’t anything in stores; online ordering only, and in an unfamiliar subject who knows if it is any good unless you can flip through it. Anyone can review online and you wind up with so many conflicting reports of the same book there is no way to know, and I would definitely need pictures/drawings for something like this, so again need to flip through. There was one mag that was decent, even had some step by step, but didn’t have enough detail, i.e. went over some piece install, but not others. Everything mentioned was also for desktop models, and the monitor obviously extra, the price was still up there. The parts that seem to be worst in pricing were casing, memory, and monitor, which unfortunately, tend to be a bit essential.
Re Linux- have heard of Ubuntu and Gentoo. Mint is new to me. Think I remember some guys I knew in high school talking about Ubuntu, but it was in much baser stages back then. Still not willing to try it on a new machine. I want some old junker to play around with that of I screw it up it doesn’t matter, or at least know someone that can help me fix it without surrendering the computer to a computer repair place that has no standards of the people it hires.
Read a story, think it was either 25th or 26th where in South Korea there are offices that are having Ubuntu installed on the work computers because they don’t want to switch over to Windows 8. Knew Windows had gotten worse, but it must be much worse off than I thought if offices are finding ways around using it.
Re Alaska summer- haven’t there been thriller/horror movies made on just about everything? Like you I’d feel weird going to bed with the sun still up. My body has issues adjusting to the winter months over here where it’s still dark when I’m getting up, can only imagine how screwed up my internal clock would get with no real night.
Re app info- not big on downloading apps, really, though agree it is absurd what some of them want to know, especially when it has nothing to do with the app. My guess is they’re selling it to companies.
Re Top Gear- the US has made a version, but the UK is the original. Think the UK version had put out something like 15 series by the time the US version came around. Even now I think there are only 3 or 4 US seasons. The US one hasn’t taken off very much. Saw one US ep where the hosts were racing a speed boat, a sport car, and a rally car, and didn’t find it as entertaining. The guy doing the rally driving wasn’t bad, but the other two I just didn’t care for, and at the end of the race when they were doing the last bits for camera it all seemed really forced. Don’t get me wrong; I know there are plenty of set ups in TGUK, but most of the time Clarkson, May, and Hammond can make it seem like natural banter. And the US hosts just didn’t seem to have a lot of chemistry.
As for big egos, hasn’t Clarkson always had a big ego? But I’m not sure it is ego so much they are just getting old. It is really noticeable if you see an old ep and then a newer one immediately follows it. They don’t have the same energy they used to. It is one of those shows after a series is done airing I wonder if there will be another one, and not because I think it will be canceled due to not being popular, but because the presenters have decided they can’t keep up any more.
Forza 5 that just came out I know has a decent amount of TG integrated. The guys do some narration for it, the track is there to drive around, and some how the Stig is present – maybe you race him or something.
No, I started watching Top Gear because they had a clip show of their “top fails” running and there was nothing else on. I was feeling kind of down at the time and watching three middle age English blokes accidentally burn down a caravan with a cooking fire, get three supercars stuck in a Paris parking garage, and fail to demolish a block of houses even with explosives gave me a laugh, so when the new series started up (18 or 19) I started watching.
We don’t get any of books over here in stores. Think they’re available from Amazon, though, or online through a book store. May’s one show, Man Lab, runs on BBCA, and heard an ad for one of Richard’s science specials on another channel, but was never able to find out when it was supposed to be on.
Read the article you linked to about Hammond. Wonder how many of those issues he’s still having, or if he’s gotten it under control since 2008 when the article was published. BBCA has been airing quite a few eps recently from series before the crash occurred, and you can kind of see a difference in him. Don’t know if it is just from him getting older or if it is from the crash. Seems more … relaxed, I guess, before the crash.
Re US spending- yes something needs to be done about it. That doesn’t mean that the Tea Party still isn’t batsh*t crazy.
Re key party- In real life, yes people carry on and on and on when they are being dicks a lot of the time. In tv and movies, and this might be an American thing – or more probably a me thing, it needs to get to the point faster. It went past being obvious it was going to be his key to beating a dead horse of him being a dick.
Re world news- I just like knowing what is going on in the world, since, despite what seems like a lot of Americans believe, it does affect us. Also like getting a kind of outside perspective, and sometimes more accurate info. The biggest one I can think of is what is going on in Syria. The US national news ran a story about the people that are fighting against the Syrian government. The message boiled down to we should help the rebels because they are just protecting themselves and the fight is not about religion (while the people were shouting something about Allah in the background, but of course that didn’t mean anything.) Watched a segment on the BBC news and found out that one of the worse Syrian rebel groups has strong ties to Al-Qaeda. Right or wrong the US has spent over 10 years in the Middle East fighting against A1-Qaeda. What sense does it make to give them weapons in Syria?
Re 0.5% election win- Commenting on that would require me understanding in the first place how anyone with half a percent is even noticed, or comprehend that it is possible outside of primaries. There have been a few different stories talking about different countries’ elections since I started watching the BBC world news, and the complexity that goes into these systems in comparison to the US is daunting. Read somewhere ages ago how someone from a different country thought ours was so complex, and the more I see, the less I understand how they think ours is difficult, though I’m sure you ask anyone from any country and they will think their own is simple. Realistically, we only have two parties, which hate each other, so any kind of party preference for another or collation building leaves me confused.
Re 2CELLOS ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’- Amazing attempt trying to make playing the cello cool. Found a vid where they play ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ that sounded better, but I think that was because there were audience yelling over the music, and it is a piece of music I’m more familiar with. They need new bows, though, or better quality ones that they don’t eat through in one performance. Probably some kind of showmanship, but messy looking.
Memory tests:
Categorisation- My first go through I was in 3rd percentile. Kept trying to anticipate when they’d switch over and then would get flustered and hit a bunch wrong in a row. Then some of the tools I spent more time trying to figure out what they were instead of just thinking tool, hit button, move on. Didn’t make a note of what the speed was. Was 200 something; maybe 280 odd.
Attentional blink test- 93% right, in 89th percentile. Wasn’t much of a fan of that one. There was one answer I got wrong because I thought my mouse was over farther on the screen when I went to click the first number. You can bet that my attention was a lot more focused after that mistake. The figure they were using for the 8 needed to be more like an 8, though, as it kind of stuck out even when it was in black ink.
Did the categorization a second time and it went up to 128ms thinking time, which put me in the 89th percentile. This was also an easier test because almost every pic was a tool, and the few writing instruments that I got wrong apparently didn’t have much effect on the final score. Didn’t redo the second test.
Joined the site trying to retake the first test originally. Tried the Divided Attention one before reading your third post. The first level I did better than the second, but didn’t pay much attention to speeds. I know myself too well and can quickly become too obsessed with trying to beat my own score, which never works because I tense up to much when playing. Have found that I’m at my best the first couple of times when my brain is still kind of loose and not trying to consciously process everything.
Supposedly these kind of tests do help with some kind of thinking. Some sort of cognitive psychology research; been too long for me to remember the guy that came up with it. Remember doing sort of mock research where we got volunteers to help us recreate the results of one. There were two different pieces of paper. On one piece the names of colours were written in the same colour that corresponded to the name, i.e. the word red was written in red ink, the word blue would in blue ink, green in green ink, etc. The other piece of paper had the words written in inks that did not correspond to their colour and there was no pattern as to what colour ink a particular colour name was written in, it just couldn’t be it’s own. So, the word blue might appear in green, yellow, red ink etc, the word green might appear in red, blue, orange ink, etc. The participant is told to read the word off of sheet one and that is timed. They are then given the second sheet and told to read off the word and that is timed. The sheet with the colour names corresponding to the ink they are written in always has the faster time because the brain isn’t trying to process to different bits of information at the same time and come up with the correct answer.
I believe the purpose behind these tests on the website is basically to help a person be able to process information faster so they can discard the junk input and examine what is necessary for the situation. I want to say there is evidence to show that these kind of things can work, but a person really has to keep up with the exercises for it to be useful, or be in some kind of real life situation where the brain get a decent workout. For the average person I don’t know how truly beneficial it is.
Re Movember- does the heart good to see something good like that take off so quickly. Crappy the hospital didn’t take them seriously that first year.
Re swamped with tv shows- yes. While a DVR/PVR can be a wonderful thing I wonder if I would be better without it since before I was forced to choose one or the other. Cable shows would generally have a second airing later that night, so if there were two shows airing at the same time I could see one at the first airing and the other on its repeat. Or watch the network one first and the cable one on its repeat.
With the DVR I find myself recording a bunch and trying to play catch up. I have found that anymore I can only take so many hours of tv a week before I just get sick of all of it; haven’t determined if that is a good or bad thing. What is really bad is everything tends to be on at once and then nothing is on, so there might be a few months were five shows are on Monday, two Tuesday, one Wednesday, two Thursday, one Friday, two Saturday, one Sunday. That is roughly what the schedule looked like for the shows I was interested in watching at the beginning of the 2013 autumn tv season. There were several that I just decided to not bother with because it was too much. Starting the first full week of January, some shows will return from holiday hiatus and then some new ones will start up.
There are also a couple shows that I recorded all the eps in the autumn with then intention of binge watching, or if they got canceled I wouldn’t have invested any time in. Sleepy Hollow was one of these shows, because, like you, I was assuming that this was going to be a one and done series, or that it would get cancelled before all the eps aired. Quite surprised that it got renewed, but have yet to watch any of the eps I have recorded. Also recorded Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but kept forgetting that it was on and so don’t think I’ve got all the eps recorded. Have also heard people say it was a bit boring, so might just dump it of the DVR. There is going to be enough on for awhile anyways.
Re literacy rates- don’t know what it is for the US, but it has probably been going down. First problem is that they don’t emphasize it in schools, and the older the kid gets the less it seems to count. When my mother has kids write something to go with a project from time to time, it is quite common to see them use text spelling in their schoolwork, and if you try to correct them, they ignore it and want to know what difference does it make. In the 47% that was thrown out, I’d like to know if that includes people that have immigrated to Australia and might be able to read in their own language, but can’t read English. The libraries manager said it meant that they couldn’t read ‘a medicine label, map, or recipe’, but if they can’t read/speak the language it is written in there is a difference between that and someone that grew up with English and still can’t read.
I think to really start improving the issue it needs to start with how reading is approached in schools. For the longest time maths and hard sciences have been the big push, which is great until the kids can’t read the textbook. But, in the reading classes they need to find books that are fun and engage at the imaginative level instead of pushing classics and tearing the story apart for all kinds of hidden meanings, symbolism, or tie ins to historical issues going on at the time (which most kids don’t have the background in to fully understand or appreciate). Instill the love of reading and using imagination to embrace the story and curiosity and you’ll have an easier time getting kids reading.
And I may sound like an old fuddy duddy, but get the kids away from the electronics for a while will help too. Can’t seem to go to the store anymore without seeing toddlers watching cartoons on mom or dad’s phone/tablet or the kid has one of those tablets meant for kids that they’re watching cartoons on. Let the kid be able to build stories in their head instead of always relying on someone else’s. We didn’t have cable until I was about 7 ½ or 8, which just left us with I think 5 channels, nor did I have any video games until I was about 6, and then it was only two games. There was I think only one that had cartoons on in the afternoon for a couple hours and a Saturday morning block. One other channel had a few hours with shows like Barney, Sesame Street, and Carmen Sandiego, which were complete brain rotters, at least. I think growing up like that helped in liking reading since there wasn’t much else to do and we lived in an area without other kids around.
Re the Roast:NSA- they’ve done better mocking stories. I have a hard time getting pissed off about the NSA phone hacking story, though. Everyone is acting like the governments of the world haven’t been spying on each other, pretty much since each of them existed. Phone tapping isn’t anything new; technology has just made it easier to do. The NSA was just the agency dumb enough to get caught this time around. As for the world leaders getting brassed off they were being monitored, I have a hard time believing they don’t have their own people currently spying on other world leaders.
Re Gruen Planet anti-advertising- I have to agree with the panel. Really like the Orwellian one. The first one with the intrusive ads reminds me of a real commercial for something, might have been car insurance.
MS Word Count: 3860
re my weird double post...had a cursory look at the diffs, just by looking at the tops and tails of my paras to see if they were the same...it seems that they are. You’d be familiar - I presume - with this site’s habit of chopping of replies which are too long? Since I’ve had to factor that in to my replies, I think I may have been attempting to copy my entire original post and then paste it into a new post with just that part of it which didn’t get included in my first post. On PC - I’m not sure if you get this on Mac too - for some reason I can sometimes highlight a block of text I want to Copy and I’ll click on the “Copy” function...yet the highlighted text doesn’t copy. Maybe sometimes you need to have your cursor hovering over the highlighted text for it to work...I dunno. So, if it’s not IMDB’s fault, I suppose it’s mine for not paying too much attention to whether my attempt to salvage text which didn’t get up first time was successful. Sorry about that! I think my word count was accurate though.
Almost forgot to ask about the weather over there...actually, just editing this bit in! I know that around the time that you posted your reply that there was some freezing weather over there. Bad for you? One of my Duckduckgo search engine app’s newsfeeds linked to an article about how useless the “wind chill” measure was. At my time of writing (16/01/2014) parts of Australia are in the midst of a heatwave. If you follow the tennis you’d realise that Melbourne has been having scorchers...outside temps of 40+ C (38 = 100F). Surprised that matches not cancelled as a result with only games under the closed roof arena being played, with air-conditioning turned on! Apparently Adelaide will be 46C today. Read recently that the Australian record for hottest day is - from memory - something like 50.06/07C. That’s out Woop Woop way though...doesn’t affect anybody, in other words. What’s the hottest that the USA has got?
Bit of homework here...I think I couldn’t find a Doctor Who related ad mentioned in Gruen...they got back to me on that and I used a better search term on You Tube...here’s the clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWqoB6Ujj80
Apparently that ad never aired though...a good thing too...cough, cough! Seeing that ad explained some references which meant nothing to me in The Goodies, which used to precede Classic eps of Doctor Who in Australia. The Goodies was on ABC TV and that was ad free (technically it still is, but it now has infernal self-promotion for its own shows as well as its stores/products.
This isn’t the ad...but I didn’t mind it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg_E_BEQSvI
Okay, here’s the ad I would have seen as a kid without the background info that it was based on ads like the Doctor Who related one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zc_-j3uHww
“String 1” is quite bawdy, so I went for #2! Hmm...in Australia, The Goodies was in a children’s time slot and in the U.K. it was an adult time slot comedy.
re Macs...well, the criticism of these in PC mags is that you can’t upgrade parts and that they have no Blu-ray drive. It would be annoying to be a Mac buyer and then have the company decide that they will include disc drives at some point. But they’re probably banking on such drives being obsolete soon and they’re just ahead of the curve. Like you, I would prefer the option of a disc drive. Another thing about Macs...they seem to have around 2nd or 3rd or 4th best graphics cards available...never the top of the line one, so you also seem to be getting 2nd best there too. Would also like the option of a 17” screen on laptops too. You’d remember our discussion about Alienware computers (you know, the paedo’s PC of choice), well they have 17” and 18” screens for laptops. Maybe the bigger screen doesn’t get a GPU as powerful as the 17” one or something like that too. Did read some article about tablets or phablets or something like that...apparently one or two now have resolutions superior to the Apple. And other brands overtaking Apple in the popularity stakes too.
You mentioned preferring buying CDs to downloading songs. Did you realise that vinyl is making a revival? Story in the Green Guide today about Australia’s most popular brand, Pro-Ject. I think that they’re Czech (sp?) or something. They’re the cheap option but apparently best in the under $1,000 bracket. Do you burn CDs? When I get a PC I plan to do that. Apparently FLAC is the best format to do that. Apple has its own equivalent (ALAC?). They’re both lossless. Have heard of sites which let you download music at a quality superior to CD! I actually did burn some CDs in a store with that facility and was annoyed to find out later that I was burning onto my CDs something which was not CD quality. Does that make sense?! Stopped doing that afterwards.
Are you serious about music quality? You use that lossless Apple format at all? That’s another thing about Apple products...with PCs you can aim for higher quality on-board sound cards. But in both cases you could just get an external solution...DACs etc. Think I read of one for about the $500 mark which also doubles as storage unit for you music (actually, turns out to be around $1,500...not so do-able in that case!). Also heard that the US made Blu-ray player Oppo is audiophile quality...plays Blu-ray music, SACD etc. Not sure if I’ve seen much/any SACDs in stores. Step up from CD quality sound. Maybe never took off? You can burn vinyl to PC as well, if you are interested. Just by the by, Google Play did offer free music albums...downloaded one or two. Not listened to them though. Maybe never. But hey, it’s free!
re mobile internet sites: I never log in via my tablet. My service is crapulous...am really hoping to get access to optic fibre some time soon. Basically I was mislead about the quality of the internet available where I live...sales people who probably don’t have a clue on what they’re talking about. Really get the feeling that the answer to your questions from them depends on who you speak to. So, the one question gets answered “Yes” by one person, “No” by another and “Dunno” by someone else. My tablet experience sucks too...because not only does the internet suck, but the tablet does too! But sure, sites ‘tailored’ to tablets etc can be annoying, just because they put useful parts of the page in sub-menus or whatever (also have the issue of pages being off-centre and hence unreadable). It would be nice to think that I will soon have optic fibre internet connection and be able to ditch my current supplier. Mr. Speedo is now PM, so the whole optic fibre thing is up in the air...hopefully when I get it (? > actually, saw some workers digging a ditch for it...not sure if/when I will get access to it though) it will be under the former Labor government’s fibre to the home model and not Mr. Speedo’s fibre to the node model...which will be slower. Fibre to the home could bring speeds of up to 90 mbps (or whatever the right acronym is!). Hopefully that will make my tablet experience suck less.
re SSD v HDD...I thought that “Fusion” drives was Apple’s hybrid system...so, you’d get a 120Gb SDD for the OS etc and up to a 1Tb HDD for everything else. Not an option for laptops? Maybe I saw something like that for PCs too. Samsung has a 1Tb SSD for PCs at around $700+ or whatever, which is apparently quite the bargain! Have heard that Flash drives are v.fast too, but not sure of the diff between those and SSD...both pretty expensive though.
re building your own computers...have seen one or two articles or mentions of ‘Mini’ something or other…”tower”? “case”? Basically you could kit out a very small desktop case with the Titan GPU, which, at the time was the fastest single GPU. There’s a cheaper version of that now, with more power in some respects, but less memory than the Titan. The alternative to NVidia - maker of the Titan - has a monster card too, but apparently running it at full bore is like being next to someone running a whipper snipper! The top of the line NVidias are more power efficient and quieter too. I’m not a tinkerer either, so putting a Ferrari engine in a Volkswagen isn’t my thing...which putting a Titan in a mini case seems analogous to.
re Linux: Ubuntu used to be the #1 distro. A modified version of that, called “Mint” is now #1 (you are free to take any Linux distro yourself and modify that too...you could create your own distro if you like). Maybe the hipsters got sick of Ubuntu getting more corporate? There’s a site called Distro Watch, I think, which measures hits to the sites for the various flavours of Linux...or something of the sort. Some of the Linux mags I have read do trumpet when governments go Linux. E.g. some months back, I think, Australia’s government (departments or whatever) was mentioned as going Linux. Probably due to issues like Windows being proprietary software which means there is no ongoing committment to ensuring that the version of the software is supported...important when archiving documents. Other countries also get mentioned for saving money by going Linux. Think that maybe Linux has software kind of stuff which is designed to be long lasting and accessible. Don’t know if Universal Format is the right phrase for that or not. Have heard about “Live” CDs for Linux. Could be interesting...e.g. for surfing the web without every corporation keeping tabs on where you go so that they can spam you better. Live CDs don’t use the hard drive as well, I believe. If you were curious about Linux that could be an option for you...Live CDs...try it out without committing to partitioning your hard drive. If/when I get a PC I’m thinking of getting one of those portable hard drives and running a Linux distro from there. Maybe something like Mint. Did read that System Admins prefer Debian, but they’re System Admins and perhaps those distros require more knowledge of Linux. As a casual observer, it seems to me if people don’t like a new user interface of a Linux distro or whatever, they start a new distro with their preferred UI. I think something like “Gnome” falls into that category...not sure if Gnome is the popular or unpopular one..browsed a Linux mag the other day...I think that Gnome 3 is the hated new UI and people either mod Gnome 2 or seek alternatives to Gnome.
This may or may not interest you...Windows released version 8.1 recently, which had the Start menu of 7, or something like that. Apparently people preferred the Start menu but take up of 8.1 hasn’t been great. Apple’s new OS did have most people - or whatever - upgrade to it. Windows seems to have bumpy rides...OS’s which people love followed by ones which suck. Windows 8 seems to fall into the latter camp. Since you mentioned Apples never crashing on you, Newton style, I should mention - which I probably have done months ago here - that when using Apple computers in Apple stores they HAVE frozen on me, requiring a reboot. Them not doing that was supposed to be their selling point, right? If I had money for both a PC and a Mac I suppose I’d want a Mac with one of those new fangled OLED screens...and a Blu-ray drive...4K resolution. Is that too much to ask for? Last year I did hear of a 4K monitor for PC selling for the bargain price of about $16k!
re app info: I’m sure I’ve read of Apple’s own apps being able to ‘trade’ personal user info with other apps...or something like that (probably apps which are in the iStore trading user info to other companies or apps...or something). That’s definitely not ideal!
re Top Gear: I’m pretty confident that if the Australian version is still going, it’s not that popular. Did watch Hammond’s series on human inventions which look to animal’s evolutionary adaptations...oh yeah...there was a submarine which ripped off vultures or something like that(!).
re Forza...I was aware that the Brit TG team featured in that but I was specifically interested in whether they still had the UK TG track (oh, I see now that you say that it does...cool!). Not sure if one or both of Forza and Gran Turismo had a Bathurst track. That’s Australia’s most famous track. Haven’t watched the famous 1,000k race held there annually since I was a kid, but I do like the thought of virtually driving that. It’s a street circuit but it’s not in the big city. On the N64 F1 game I wasn’t a fan of the Melbourne F1 circuit...parts of the street circuit just really slowed you down for some reason (i.e. if you weren’t on the right racing line...not sure what that ‘slow’ part of the road was meant to simulate). Adelaide (another capital city here) used to hold that grand prix...be curious to try that, as well as Phillip Island which is apparently a brilliant motorbike GP circuit...flowing circuit where you can overtake others...cf. something like Monaco F1 tracks, which hems you in. Never liked virtually racing on Japan’s famous GP circuit either...Suzuka? I forget. Just couldn’t get into flowing high speed groove.
Since you mention books, you have Kindles or something like that? Did hear of some super white version of that...i.e. screen like really bright white paper. Wonder how much the big Oxford English dictionary costs...or the even bigger one...which has some 20 plus fracking volumes, from memory! Or even Encyclopaedia Britannica. Was the latter ever a ‘thing’ in the US? think Australia may have had door to door salesmen with these. The US had the rather seedy sounding Funk & Wagnalls. My dad had...think it was called Arthur Mee’s Childrens Encyclopaedia or something like that. With ‘fun’ activities for the kids...vaguely remember something like pegs which you could make fight eachother...or maybe I just dreamt that?
re Key party sketch...man, are we still going on about that? Personally I liked that...I suppose it’s one of those Ricky Gervais kind of scenarios where the person just digs a deeper and deeper hole for themselves...the comedy of personal humiliation. Like I said before, that “Smithston” sketch was the one where I just felt like it went on for miles too long without much return on investment.
re Syria...yeah, I think I did see on the news something about the revolution perhaps being co-opted by AQ. It looks like you used “A1” for the first part...worried about PRISM or something? Speaking of which...this is the issue for me...you remember last year - I think it was - Barrack Obama tutting tutting and waving his finger at China over their spying? Now it turns out that the USA really puts China into the shade over spying! The US has also banned Chinese IT company Huawei from tendering for projects in the US or something. The other week or whatever there was a story online about the United Arab Emirates discovering US spyware in French satellite technology sold to them. It’s just hard to see Uncle Sam having the front to give any other nation a hard time over spying allegations….but then again, the US probably will wave their finger at some other nation (...China...ahem) and click their tongue at them. I’m not Kevin Rudd (you know, our former PM who swore...as seen on You Tube), so I don’t know what the Chinese is for “Seriously?” or “Really?” to when the US does raise the issue of spying. Another concern of mine re spying is that it may be economically motivated. Recently a Chinese worker at our top research organisation ran off with some laptops or whatever...stole info concerning agriculture or whatever. It’s not like Australia is killing it in IP, so that might hurt us...China could end up selling us something cheap which was based on our own IP or whathaveyou.
re 0.5% of vote election win here and US system not complex...I’m pretty sure we’ve discussed the US electoral system and I probably made a comment along the lines that the latter seems designed to shut out real competition for your vote...maybe a two party kind of system. In Australia, we have preferential voting. Think I mentioned that last election the ballot could be over a meter long because of so many candidates. You can just vote for one person above the line on the ballot, which means that preferences go according to how the party sets it out, or you can vote below the line, in which case you’d have to number the candidates from 1 to 100 or whatever ridiculously big number of candidates there were. If you miss one, your vote doesn’t count. Anyway, with a person getting 0.5% of the vote and getting elected, that’s down to the preferential voting system. Both major parties usually have the lion’s share of the primary votes but if neither gets 50% of the vote, then preferences come into it. As preferences get allocated, unfancied parties get eliminated and even the major parties can miss out on a seat. I thought maybe I had included a link to an article mentioning that - if I stuffed up with my last post, maybe that was there - maybe I’ll try and look for it later (not having luck with that...think I made a note of the article name). Article mentioned some parties contesting the result...they were minor parties too but the article says that if they hadn’t of been knocked out when they were and had lasted a bit longer, they would have ridden ‘a torrent of preferences’ all the way to parliament. Not sure if the Greens were in that boat...pretty much the major minor party - if that makes sense - now that Democrats are a spent force here.
There’s a guy who’s a respected election analyst here and he’s scathing on Australia’s system, below...I just skim read it but his observation of what happened in the UK amused me:
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/senate-preference-deals-put-the-joke- on-us-20130909-2tg64.html
Gosh, you were harsh on 2 Cellos! It sounded fine to me, but what do I know? You like Apocalyptica better then? Not sure where you’re coming from with your comment about “Welcome to the jungle”...you liked it more because you couldn’t hear them? Hmm! I’m not a huge G’n’R fan...used to love “Sweet child” but a bit off it now and I only used to listen in to “November rain” once Slash began his solo outro...but I’ve warmed to that song now, as a whole...i.e. I’ll listen to it from the start now if it comes on the radio.
re brain test site...brings to mind an article a philosopher mentioned (I see that it’s written by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins...I think I’ve mentioned him before, perhaps?)…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/15/september11.politicsphilo sophyandsociety1
Perhaps that brain site is best suited to pigeons? If yes, I still doubt that you’d categorise said pigeons as “geniuses” if they ‘graduated’ from the programme! Just wondering what humans would benefit from the site...F1 drivers, perhaps?
Not sure if I’ve linked to that before...no doubt we’re recycling comments here at times?
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
re one of your tests being easier...I get that impression too...as in sometimes you just get a string of options that are all “Yes” (or whatever) and you rack up a good score. You don’t get flustered either. Perhaps some people deal better with options being mixed up a bit...which their test wouldn’t measure...or would dismiss some users as stupid or whatever. Like I said, I found it passing strange that in one test at one time I’m as thick as a brick and in a re-do I’m Einstein or whatever. Just seems quite suss as far as how seriously you can take it.
re text colour different to colour word in text...e.g. blue...saw an interesting docu before I saw that Gruen guy’s one (mentioned the title in one of my Lists…”Test your brain”)...had some crossover of content...but apparently hypnotism helps you fly through such tests. The uni student girl in that - very cute...reminded me of Alyson Hannigan - had trouble with the test under normal circumstances but a real Einstein under hypnotsis. Same goes for some even harder tests with - from memory - cogs and parts of it being obscured...trying to work out which way something will turn.
re PVR...I’m doing what you’re doing...season recording. Only because the final series of Shameless has been shunted to the 2nd digital channel and is now not being subtitled, which sucks. Want the DVD...oddly, it seems Australia only has the earlier series of that available...no idea why...something like s06 or whatever, and we’re up to s12 maybe on tv.
Haven’t started watching Californication yet. Hopefully it has subtitles.
Really hate it how Weeds is on and off again, with late starts, early starts. Really, I just wish the commercial networks here would die. They do make Australian dramas, so if whatever else replaces networks can do that, the sooner the dinosaur tv networks go, the better. They don’t even have Weeds online because there isn’t the demand for it, apparently.
Also mentioned Portalandia before. Oddly, the commercial ‘free’ ABC TV rushed the new series of that, which I wasn’t expecting. All the episodes on weekdays, bang, bang, bang. So annoying. Watching it one week at a time now. Remember how I said Portandia wasn’t really a “You Tubable” kind of show (as is “30 Rock”)? Of you course you do! That changed...this bit amused me in the show the other week...it has a preamble to the bit I wanted to link to, but that sort of amused me to, so I’ll link to the slightly long clip:
Portlandia - Birthday party loan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nTSQAmNHTo
You mentioned SHIELD. Not sure how seriously I considered watching that...not enough to PVR it ‘just in case’. The Green Guide’s critics do like it...so, if I take an interest it will probably be via DVD or online, if I get optic fibre internet.
Should mention The Walking Dead. Looked a bit of a B series. The only thing of interest to me was whether the cop would find his wife and kid, who was now shacking up with husband’s best friend...also a cop. Was thinking of ditching the series but at some point I felt that it got better and so now I will stick with the next series.
Have to say that I’m annoyed with an unexpected spoiler for Masters Of Sex...read an interview with the male star of that show and a real life fact is revealed...which is just basically something that the show is yet to reach. TV ‘reviewers’ are just the most worthless reviewers imaginable. It’s like they’re IMDB boarders with a paid job writing for Murdoch or whoever. Can’t say anything without giving away spoilers.
re literacy in Australia...any insights into my puzzlement? I.e. apparently Australia has about 50% functional literacy or whatever yet that Wiki article has us as one of the most literate countries in the world...99% or whatever the figure was. 50% v 90+%...huge difference...and they can’t both be right...can they?
re kids and tv...you think Sesame Street rots the brain? Really? I thought it was helpful to young uns learning basic numeracy and literacy. Think I saw/read somewhere that DVDs or whatever designed to make kids smarter were in fact useless. I.e. all spin/marketing and no results.
re phone tapping...Australia in hot water with Indonesia over this. There was some interview with an Indonesian military guy or whatever who said that Indonesia spied on Australia too...but this is a bit of a crisis for Mr. Speedos.
Speaking of games...I downloaded a free one on Google Play or whatever it is called…”Plague Inc.”. You’ll be pleased to know that I killed every human on Earth on my 4th try! Yay me! That was on casual mode though...not on Normal difficulty. Hardly play it now...bit pigeon guided missile kind of game play on tablet. Told I had ‘unlocked’ some new plague or whatever in the game and tried to use it...it seems you have to pay to use something you have unlocked! Played it a few days ago. Paid about $1 to ‘upgrade’ it. Seemed pretty vague. Trying the game, most things still seemed locked...so wasted a buck there, I think! Got no reply from the dev over this issue, but probably won’t pursue it.
Oh, nearly forgot to mention...not sure if this interests you, but my Duckduckgo app, I think, had a link to a story about Monty Python’s work going official on You Tube...various sketches from Flying Circus...not sure how exhaustive that is though. Recentlyish saw somewhere (docu?) the professional argument sketch. That wasn’t bad. Not a huge dead parrot sketch fan. The host of a local religious show on ABC over here also mentioned not agreeing with some poll (British only?) where the parrot sketch topped it. He liked another Flying Circus sketch better (then again, maybe he had a MP movie in mind). Me to. Personally, found the fish slapping sketch a good one.
What the Hell...here’s that argument sketch from the Official channel...it’s got a top and tail on it which maybe stretches things too much though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
Was going to try and find the list which had the dead parrot sketch at number one...but I don’t recall what site had it. Seem to remember now that the religious show host (I’m not religious myself but it’s on a station which I listen to and on Sunday nights they have that programme late at night and sometimes I’ll listen to it) liked the following sketch (hmm...technically this isn’t a sketch...it’s a scene from a movie...whatevs):
The life of Brian - What have the Romans ever done for us?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
If we’re counting movies, this is a fave from the same movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hYbDaVto6A
Hmm...seem to remember there being more dairy related humour there..memory playing tricks on me!
Lastly (?) my Duckduckgo app had a feed for the following...not sure how much you know about NFL (surely more than me!), but found it amusing:
Bad British NFL commentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW4J-RiCZ2Q
Not exactly Roy & H.G. type comedia sports commentary...that Australian duo are more commentators from a parallel world, so to speak!
Noticed another one by the same guys...for basketball:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxYikubciDE
I read an article today (21/01/14) which mentioned charter schools in the US. Not sure if you’ve brought that up before. Looked at Wiki on this but the entry for the US was “tldr”. Hopefully the sentence at the top of the article was the useful bit.
Lastly, you check out that Doctor Who movie you recorded? Like I said to you in a PM, it’s one of those self-reflexive episodes where you’d need to be familiar with the rebooted series (at least) to get all the references.
Edit in:
re Australian literacy etc., I was looking for an article on this and found what looks like an expanded version of the one I saw in the hard copy...sorry if it’s too much info...they also provide a sample “PISA” question. Anyway, the article addresses a comment I think you made in your last reply re immigrant results vs Australian born results in such surveys.
I’ll post a link to the article below and then quote that particular part of the article:
http://www.news.com.au/national/pisa-report-finds-australian-teenagers -education-worse-than-10-years-ago/story-fncynjr2-1226774541525
“The PISA report shows that migrant students performed best in the Australian test.
Even in English literacy, 14 per cent of foreign-born students were top performers, compared to 10 per cent of Australian-born students.
Indigenous students or those living in remote areas were twice as likely to do worst in the PISA tests.
Students from wealthy families were five times more likely than the poorest students to excel.”
Was also watching “7:30” on one of my rare occasions (used to watch heaps years ago). I think that they interviewed a U.S. academic who goes into the various teaching styles and mentions South Korea as being highly accomplished in such surveys but that parents and students did feel that it was a very onerous programme taking up a Hell of a lot of the student’s life at that state. I’ll link to the extended interview below which was for the web only, but there is a link to the shorter version which aired on tv, I think, as well as the transcript if you want to go that way...but that’s only on the link for the shorter clip.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3932824.htm
Lastly (?), I know that we were talking about the use of smell in consumer behaviour...there was an article in The Age on that recently:
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/fashion-retailers-sniff-out-ne w-way-to-boost-sales-with-olfactive-branding-20131204-2yr47.html
The link above doesn’t have the inset of the hard copy, but I’ll type that out myself:
Lavender - calming and soothing
Rosemary - stimulating and energy boosting
Lemon - clarifying, helps reduce anxiety and anger
Jasmine - uplifting, induces confidence and optimism
Vanilla - comforting
Frankincense - warming
Peppermint - invigorating.
Not sure where those supposed facts come from, but I’m just quoting The Age, which at least aspires to be a journal of record. Have seen docus or whatever where colours are mentioned as having similar affects on mood...e.g. (from memory, which is probably wrong, since I saw that so many years ago): pink is calming...so, you’d paint an area in a gaol pink to calm prisoners, say, rather than having it painted blue or whatever.
Think we’ve covered the following topic before...the following story came up on my Duckduckgo app…well, actually, the Lifehacker feed which had tips on HOW to praise your kids, included a link to the following story from a site I don’t have as a feed on duckduckgo:
“Why telling kids they are smart makes them dumb”
http://www.parentingscience.com/praise-and-intelligence.htm
Gooble word count: 5,343 (Sorry! What's the record again? Yours?)
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
Re brutal temps- remember reading about the problems they were having with the tennis matches and the extreme heat. It’s been another nasty winter with temps around here in the teens F, plus 10-20 mph wind, usually cold, north winds. Snowfall has been double about the average for the season, though it all came in the second half of the season. Think the Northeast has had a worse than usual winter, but that might just be the media playing up northeast problems as usual. The south had it pretty rough, too, with places getting snow and ice that aren’t used to getting any and therefore not equipped to handle it. Don’t know if you heard about it internationally, but it became an issue in Georgia where they didn’t heed warnings from the different weather services and a bunch of people got stranded in various places. Kids had to sleep overnight at schools, some employees had to stay at their places of employment – the lucky ones at least. Those that tried to drive home wound up in traffic jams overnight, and a bunch of people just abandoned their cars outright to either take shelter in various retailers that let people use stores to have a warm place to sleep and then some tried to walk home. The pictures at the link probably tell it best.
[html] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/01/29/the-souths-disastrous-response-to-the-winter-storm-in-16-pictures/ [/html]
The hottest temp recorded in the US is 136 F/57.8C, which was at Death Valley, California, which is a desert. Found a top 10 hottest US temps, and seems like several places in the plains can get around 125F / 51C from time to time.
Re smoking commercial/skits- wouldn’t think Daleks would be the best sales-thing for anything. Maybe it’d work for some kind of cleaning product. We exterminate stains the way a dalek exterminates, well, everything.
The Goodies “string” segments remind me of old cigarette commercials that I’ve seen before, where only the cool, beautiful people smoke x brand cigarette, but after getting sucked into the black hole that is Youtube for a while, I think the commercials I’m thinking of might be from the 70s. There were enough ridiculous smoking ads from the earlier eras without adding the sex element into it. Amazing how everyone had the most popular, or let the most tobacco taste through, or whatever other claim that the all seemed to say belonged to them. Would be interesting to see those redone to truth standards of today where all the statements have to be based off of some truth, even if there is a lot of leeway to bend and stretch, and I mean beyond the disclaimer of ‘use our product and you have a significantly increased risk of cancer of several different body parts, yellowing teeth, bad skin, etc, etc.’ Probably wouldn’t be any worse than some of the prescription med ads, though. Are prescription drug companies allowed to market directly to consumers in Australia, i.e. tv ads, radio ads, magazine ads? There are some of them I don’t know why anyone would take it after hearing all the side effects listed out. The most absurd I’ve noticed is a sleep aid called Lunesta. The following is a minute long version of their tv commercial.
[html] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ojjrLARMzA [/html]
Half, yes HALF of the commercial is side effects to look out for while on the drug. They have a short one that I really disagree with that is a 15 second spot of the green butterfly flying around screen and then it ends with a voice over “follow the wings” and a website to go to. Guess I just get irritated in general with people pushing a drug for everything these days.
Re vinyl comeback – yeah, there is a chain store not far from my house that re-sells books, cds, videos, and vinyl records, and their section on vinyl and been steadily getting larger over the last few years. Have a record player that we’ve had as long as I can remember, and I can understand why people prefer some records on vinyl. My mom had an original London recording of Cats on vinyl and now have it on re-mastered cd, and I like the vinyl better. Dad has a vinyl copy of Hotel California and that sounds better than the digital versions I’ve heard.
Re cds- If I download a song or album, I burn a cd of it as a backup in case the computer dies or the ipod dies. With this new laptop, iTunes is showing that the purchases I’ve made from them are available to put on this computer via cloud if I activate it or some such, but all it is serving as right now is an irritant that those songs show up as being there until you click on them and then the whole re-download/authorize this computer thing pops up. I don’t remember giving iTunes permission to keep cloud back-ups, as I have no trust for cloud systems what-so-ever, but it is probably in the fine print somewhere on the user agreement.
Haven’t burned any discs on this computer yet, and don’t remember what I was using on the old one. I think it was just something that I knew my car or stereo could play.
As for music quality, I’m not one of those people that is constantly tweaking it, but I would like it if the ipod version would sound as good as the cd. Have rarely achieved this, yet. I have a stack of cds still that I have accumulated that need to be transferred to the ipod, so might play around with it some then. One thing I have noticed is that my old ipod video has a better music playback quality than newer itouch. Got the itouch when it looked like the ipod was on it’s last leg, but the old one bounced back and still working great. I find myself using the old ipod to listen to music and then the itouch for things like quick internet search when don’t want to get the computer out, checking twitter, weather, etc. Is only wi-fi enabled so has limited uses in some places, but not overly thrilled with it’s music capabilities. The itouch is also more of a pain to change songs or albums in the car.
Get a lot of my free albums off of amazon. Haven’t checked in awhile, so don’t know what is available. Some hits and misses. They’re usually sampler albums, but worth a check every couple months, and like you said, free!
Re memory systems- “fusion” is Apple’s hybrid. Right now it’s only available on their desktop computers. Laptops you only get flash storage, which is supposed to be superior because it has no moving parts and therefore, I think, is less likely to corrupt or burn out the way the old hard drives could.
Re OS comparisons- Windows had the market cornered until they did Windows Vista, and I think that is when people began switching over more. There were back support issues where people couldn’t open old documents unless the were saved a certain way, and then with documents created in Vista they had to be saved a certain way in order to be read on anything not Vista, but it could cause some problems with the document or something. Don’t remember the exact problems but at uni I remember people complaining about it. Windows 7 was supposed to fix everything, but heard some complaints about that, too, and the Windows 8 they went to that horrible interface that assumed everyone was switching to touch screens. Bit shocked that they put out just an update instead of Windows 9 or such.
As for the Apple computers freezing/crashing in store, I think that has to do with the way they’re set up. Dad was playing with one when we went in to see if my old one could be saved, and it acted differently than any of the personal ones I’ve used. They probably have a bunch of safety net and blocking programs so that people can’t get to dirty sites or install anything on the floor machines.
Fast look and there are some 4K monitors available over here for around $3,000 for a 31.5 inch. Don’t know how good they are, though.
Re Kindle- I don’t have any sort of tablet or e-reader. Both Kindle and Nook (which is a Barnes & Noble (major bookstore chain) brand e-reader) have apps that can be downloaded for free to a computer so e-books and the like can be accessed that way without having to purchase an e-reader. Kindle is trying to brand itself as a regular tablet over here now, with commercials comparing it to the iPad. One of their selling points is the paper white screen that is supposed to be easier to read in the sunlight or something like that. With the Kindle app, had that on deceased laptop, and the dictionary came free with the download, as well as two other classics – don’t remember what they were.
Re Encyclopedia Britannica- don’t know how popular it was in homes or anything, but all the schools I went to had a set of E.B. in their libraries. Had another set called World Book, which I always preferred to E.B. If I remember right it had more details in it, and for some reason I remember it being easier to use. Don’t remember ever hearing about one called Funk & Wagnalls.
Re “A1” in place of Al in Al-Queda- that was just a typo. Don’t quite know how I managed it, but I’ve caught myself making stranger ones. Brain goes to fast for fingers to keep up I guess.
Re spying- how the media is handling all theses spy stories that are coming out bugs me worse than the actual spying. Everyone is acting like no one has ever spied on anyone else or kept surveillance on anyone else. Wake up people! As long as there have been organized governments people have been spying on each other in war and peace. It happens. It’s the game of trying to stay one step ahead of the other guy. For now have a hard time getting worked up over spying on citizens as well. Yes, it can be a very slippery slope, but haven’t seen any real issues arise from it. Unless you count all the time and investment that could be invested into some other programme.
Re Australian election system- the article helped to make more sense of it. The cartoon ballot at the top is great.
Re Dawkins article and brain test site- maybe those brain games would be more suited to pigeons, although would need a better reward than beating a previous time. Maybe to really get into that site or one like it a person needs to be a “pigeon” where the reward is getting a better time, which in the real world means jack all.
I’ve heard of Dawkins before, don’t think I’ve read anything by him. Thought he was another scientist getting in on the creation/evolution debate.
re Portlandia “birthday party loan”- it felt like it should have been longer, or at least tell how much of a loan they got.
Re Agents of SHIELD- I gave up and erased all the eps off the DVR. From the commercials I’ve seen it might have gotten better after the winter hiatus, but there are already full seasons for Sleepy Hollow and Atlantis on there, and have been accumulating eps from The Following and Ripper Street. On the up side found out one show I’ve been watching for a few years is in its final season and will be done in a few weeks.
Can’t say I pay attention to reviewers for the most part. If I’ve already seen the ep/show they’re reviewing I might look at it to see what someone else thought, and a lot of the times it seems that how the reviewers are leaning is an indicator on renewal, but in general I couldn’t care less what someone else thinks. If I like a preview I’ll give the show a try, unless it winds up conflicting with too many other things I’m watching.
One of the tricks the channels/networks pull over here that I abhor is instead of giving a firm yes or no on cancelling a show, they just let the contract renewal pass, and then when fans ask online about it the answer is “we have decided not to produce any more episodes of X at this time”. Biggest bullsh*t answer. If you’re going to cancel it act like adults and end it.
Re Australian literacy- with the 99% literacy number, you have to remember the source: Wiki. If you’re really interested in getting an accurate number, I’d try to find a reliable source. Anything on any Wiki site can be questionable.
Re Aussie education article- the article mentioned how it seemed to matter more which class the kid was in vs which school. Well that would indicate that teacher A knows how to teach better than teacher B, or can connect with those kids better, or has the better class overall. It is unlikely there is going to be one answer to all of the problems. Obviously just throwing money at it doesn’t work, not that politicians seem to learn that.
Maybe take away the computers and calculators until a certain point. There have been studies for ages saying that as people gain more access to technology and being able to look things up immediately, that they are storing less and less information in their brains. Like back in ancient times there weren’t books, paper was uber expensive, and students were taught almost entirely by lecture. They had to just remember everything. Maybe as a modern society we need to teach kids how to remember and not rely on technology to have the answer at their fingertips. Not saying go to the extreme of no books, paper, etc, but maybe less technology is the answer instead of more.
The thing with a lot of the Asian countries, school does take over the students’ life. There was a documentary saw, probably going on 5 years or so, that dealt with Chinese students. The high-school students were in class I think it was over 8 hours. There was I think four or five hours after school of cram school, and then the girl they were following had to stay up until about 2 am each night to get all her homework done. She had her own apartment, but I want to say the family lived in the same city, maybe, and then her mom would come over to cook her dinner and take care of the household needs so that her daughter could keep studying.
They also showed some kids that I think were about 5 what was a boarding school that was for a rural area just so the kids could get an education because if they stayed at home they wouldn’t get one. With the 5 year olds they showed that part of the education was some public shaming. One boy had destroyed his eraser and the teacher gave him a dressing down in front of everyone, and then he had to go to each student and apologize for destroying the eraser.
Re telling kids their smart article- this was covered in the vid you linked to, not as much depth as the article, though. What I don’t remember seeing covered in any of these scenarios is if you’re supposed to praise the kid’s effort even if they fail, because I know we do that a lot over here. The “it’s okay. You gave a good effort.” Which then becomes the only thing that counts is the effort, which isn’t true in the real world; they still have to produce the desired result.
With these educations things, like a lot of different areas of studies, they get so focused on one little aspect and claim it is the reason for such-and-such, but then no one pulls everything together to get a big picture that can actually fix some of these problems.
Re Sesame Street- nope, don’t think Sesame Street is brain rot. That was another typo. The phrase should have been “which weren’t complete brain rotters”.
Re games- for a while on Facebook there was a game that I was playing that you “unlocked” certain extra levels or items by completing different tasks, but had to pay to have access to them. It drove me nuts not having a computer for a few months, but it was good for breaking most of my computer habits. If it couldn’t easily be done from the iTouch I didn’t really bother. The bad side to that is it turned me almost anti-computer. I have never been one of those people that really liked social media and as a private person who likes to be left alone for the most part, the constant connectivity that is happening goes completely against my nature, and not having that computer was kind of nice. Lot of grinding teeth now with more of a full realization as to how constant technology is.
Re Monty Python- enjoyed the Argument Clinic sketch. Could see this being of actual use, though. Send an argumentative person there. Wear them out, and they are more cooperative elsewhere.
Also enjoyed the What Have the Romans Done sketch. Maybe the guy in charge of the meeting needs to go to the Argument Clinic and he’ll feel better!
The third link says that the account that uploaded the vid has been terminated.
Re Bad British Commentary- Those being uni teams it threw me for a loop until I realized they went over the top with it. Then it was very funny. The basketball found meh.
Re using scent on consumers- what if someone doesn’t like the scent the retailer has chosen? I know lavender is supposed to be calming, but I’ve never much cared for it. A lot of people like sandalwood, but again, don’t really like it, and straight lemon tends to be a bit strong. This is something that sounds like a good idea in theory, but could see the potential to alienate a lot of consumers.
Re post record- the current sits at 7640 words, according to Word.
Word Count: 3064
re Wild weather in the U.S. - been a while, but I think there probably was some mention of it in the news here...if there’s a picture of it, it made the news! Europe has been making the news here recently for that as well. As for the top U.S. temperature, I think it’s just over 50C here in Australia, but temperatures in the capitals get close to it...45C is a number that comes to mind for a couple of cities. How hot have major centres gotten in the U.S? Guessing that 40 or more would be unlikely?
re Daleks...I’m sure I mentioned a cartoon on these ages ago here...I thought it was in the New Yorker, but maybe it’s this one:
http://www.punchcartoons.com/PS/Store/Product/Daleks_plans_for_dominat ion_are_thwarted-50654
Found it via this link:
http://doctorher.com/?m=201205
Which then led me to this amusing cartoon:
http://globalgeeknews.com/2011/11/16/how-many-daleks-does-it-take-to-c hange-a-bulb-t-shirt-pic/
Just btb, I was in the cinema many weeks ago and I noticed someone with a very long scarf. I asked them if it was meant to be a (Tom Baker era) Doctor Who type scarf. It was. He knitted it himself! Yes, not a typo, “he”! It wasn’t an exact colour match but he said he wasn’t aiming for that anyway. He was seeing the then new Hobbit movie for not the first time with his girlfriend.
re The Goodies’ String ads...does the music ring a bell for you? Some sort of Muzak...which I like! I’d like to know what that bit of music is called. Ages ago on this site - or maybe another one - I actually got an answer to what a bit of music was based on my attempt to use nonsense words to spell out its melody! It was “A taste of honey”...by...whoever...quite popular in his day though. Not sure where I’ve seen it, maybe on The Checkout - an ABC TV consumer affairs programme - where they showed a magazine ad, perhaps, for a brand of cigarette...a man in white coat purporting to be a doctor assured the reader that the fag was good for their throat or some such...whatever...bit vague in my memory. Anyway, recently The Checkout returned...I have mentioned them in the past. Recently they did a story about supposed health products which contain chlorophyll...spruiked as having health benefits for humans. They contacted the ‘health’ company marketing it (Swisse, from memory). Swisse said that contra to the story the show ran, they do not advocate people take the pill 18 times every day (for an annual cost of over a $1,000, from memory. Swisse had a lower recommended dose...which became policy after the show ran their story...and was not yet labelled on the product. They also defended the health ‘benefits’ of the product...none of which had to do with spruiked ‘miracle’ ingredient of chlorophyll. Think I mentioned similar trickery here re breakfast cereals. Apparently ours are packed with sugar, cf US versions. Anyway, Kelloggs et. al. load up their sugar packed breakfast cereals with vitamins and minerals to make it seem healthy...kind of like putting a multivitamin tablet in a tub of chocolate icecream and calling it a health food.
Speaking of The Checkout, interesting ep which I caught up on...it’s the kind of show that would never get screened on commercial tv. Case in point, they did a story about reverse charge phone companies and how they are such a rip off. I’ll link to the story...the pay-off is at the end (view from c 2:35)...presumably the strategy works in the US as well? They also did a story a year ago about subverting geo-blocking by US companies and showed some US addresses you could input in Australia to access those services...including the White House, from memory!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYvtPPeFgVQ
Also interesting - and something that they’ve mentioned before - is how brands speak with forked tongue...they say one thing to their consumers, and another to their retailers...some magazines mentioned were “Convenience world” and “Retail world”, if I noted them correctly...not sure if they are US titles or local etc.
Oh, You Tube’s quite good at finding specific stories for the show:
Trade mag honesty from brands:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO4gdLr3FSc
Chlorophyll story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTa_ccZBvEg
re prescription marketing here...actually, I think it’s illegal BUT...the companies no doubt work the system. Details foggy re this, maybe something along the line of ads purporting to be general health ads about specific issues...see your doctor...and maybe a fine print mention of a particular product. The other way they get around the ban is getting our stupid ‘current affairs’ shows to do a story on their products...they probably just send the show a press release and voila...’journalists’ come running to their door to do a story on it.
Doctors have been making the news here recently about big pharma promotions...e.g. they’ll get a paid holiday to attend some ‘seminar’...for the product they are trying to flog. I still remember an ep of a fave show of mine, House, where the good doctor refuses to push a ‘new’ drug, because it’s basically an old drug whose patent is about to expire so the big pharma company does a little cosmetic tweak to the product to renew its patent. Have heard Australia fighting that type of stuff, but our government are forelock tuggers to the US so no doubt our FTA with the US would allow for the US to do that kind of stuff. re “forelock tuggers”...a phrase used by a favourite politician of mine, Labor’s Paul Keating, who used to be are PM. Think he used that phrase, together with “Lickspittle” about his conservative opponent. Always good for a laugh! Sure he’d give Joan Rivers a run for her money!
That Lunesta ad was quite funny. Think I mentioned before some binaural music CDs having similar warnings e.g. not to use heavy machinery after listening to that music! In Australia, a similar drug - I assume - has been making the news for all the wrong reasons and sporting bodies are banning its use over the bad side effects of the drug. It’s called Stilnox. Not sure if that drug has made the news in the U.S. It just so happens that in the meantime I’ve come across some of my own funny medicinal messages...I bought some Difflam lozenges the other day for a sore throat I woke up with that morning. One of its ‘selling points’ is that it’s “anti-bacterial”...right on the front of the pack, in highlights. Flip the pack though and you get the following message: “The presence of antibacterial agent in this product has not been shown to have a beneficial effect on the severity or duration of a sore throat”. Indeed. Was also wondering why I had bought the Sudafed Sinus tablets...found out this morning after not getting much sleep last night because of blocked nose. The front of the pack states “non drowsy”. Flip the pack though and it...oh. misread it...thought it said that it may cause drowsiness in “some people”...looks like it says “may cause sleeplessness in some people”. Was thinking of taking it before I went to bed tonight! Still, causing sleeplessness means more than ‘non drowsy’ though...it means ‘keep awakey!. Speeking of which, saw some “No doze” in the supermarket. Presumably truck drivers and uni students are the market for that? Lastly, I still remember the tonight show hosted by Shaun Micallef (“the drunk” sketch I linked to ages ago and “Dr. Miracle” too, from his previous sketch comedy show). Being a lawyer, he is sharp on language. He had a “High horse” segment...on one he displayed a jar of peanut butter. It contained the warning “May contain traces of nuts” (the show was unfortunately axed quite quickly on commercial tv...found a relevant You Tube, concerning medicine...you can skip the rest if you like...just the early bit (perhaps the “nuts” bit is somewhere on You Tube too):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1bcXEvRGx4
. On his current “Mad as Hell” news satire he did a good like about Mr. Speedos boat people policies...from memory, something along the lines of the government won’t hold an enquiry into maritime incidents until an enquiry establishes whether an incident actually occurred. Classic Catch 22.
re drugs for everything. The other day there was a story somewhere about ADHD not being an actual condition...yet it’s quite common for doctors to prescribe medicine to treat it. No doubt pushed by big pharma. Speaking of which...I quite like that India is big in generic medicine...I think that maybe Australia was supportive of them doing that, that maybe with our FTA with the US we’re becoming the bitches of US big pharma corporations...or European ones, to be fair.
re vinyl...I’ve never experienced audiophile quality music from any format but I like to kid myself that my expensive Sony headphones from donkey years ago fit that bill. Anyway, my old man brought a brand new 2nd hand Kriesler stereo...quite the bench. Maybe it was my mum who had a copy of Elvis’ “Flaming star” on LP. Not that long ago I bought the CD of that and I was extremely impressed with the sound. I really doubt that any vinyl could sound better than it. But that’s the thing about CD...some titles sound really impressive and...some doubt. Maybe it’s the same for vinyl too. I think the advice for audiophiles is to play your new vinyl once and have your PC record it at a high sample rate. Maybe that’s something I could try. But have noticed new LPs are now around the $40 mark. Apparently they’re heavier than the old vinyls...better quality as a result.
With your Apple music downloads, what quality setting do you go for? Like I said, I think it’s the ALAC format which is meant to be the highest possible quality you can get. My last post went into the PC equivalent. Did read something the other day about Apple used to have DRM on your music downloads, but don’t anymore. So, it’s possible to update your old music files to replace your DRM bonded ones...I’d guess that that DRM format restricts your ability to transfer the music to other devices or whatnot.
re iPod sound quality...assuming that you have downloaded the highest quality audio versions of songs then I suppose the thing that would hold back how it sounds is the headphones you use to listen to it. The Checkout did a story on headphones recently. They mentioned the pricey Beats range. You’re paying for the brand for that and also a particular graphic equaliser setting. Maybe their apps which can adjust your graphic equaliser settings for devices? My tablet has one. Might as well link to The Checkout story on these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GePUXH6X7z0
That story was easier to find on You Tube than on their own website. I’m not a complete fan of the ‘comical’ way they present stories either...presumably its for the kiddies.
Speaking of headphones, last year I went into a headphone shop and listened to some headphones, including ones which get kudos. The interesting thing for me was that I’d listen to some of those highly regarded headphones and be unimpressed with their sound quality. Here’s the weird thing...listen to those headphones on a different machine in that store - one which had a headphone amplifier - and the sound is transformed. However, some headphones I heard without the amplifier sounded great as is...that was before I cottoned onto the fact that some machines had amps. Not sure how the great sounding headphones without amps sounded with amps though.
Browsing a newsagent today I was reminded of a new development in music...Blu-Ray Audio. It’s sound is superior to CD and SACD. There was an article on this in the Green Guide but maybe I don’t have the issue with me at the moment so can’t search the article title for the online version.
re Windows 8, did come across a story where a MS suit explained the deal with that...they used some disparaging term for the people it wanted to use its tile interface for, but they had the non-tile interface for ‘power users’. This wouldn’t be the article I have in mind, but it does overlap with what I’m saying...you can skim read it if you like:
http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-ux-designer-on-metro-it-is-the-an tithesis-of-a-power-user
re store Apples different to consumer product. I don’t know. What you say kind of sounds like sandboxing anyway...that’s something Apples have now, as well as the new Windows OS. I.e. anything you download is ‘sandboxed’ to prevent malware doing you harm.
re 4K monitors...Dell has a 24’ one I think for around $1,000...maybe 1.5k. There’s an Australian company called Kogan which apparently has a very good monitor (bigger no doubt) for around $700 Aus dollars...but it’s only good once you properly calibrate it...not so good out of the box. Read that in a PC mag over here. Have heard that dell has a 29’ one on the horizon too...for under $1,000, I think. Have read that some Dell’s don’t come with a factory calibration either, so they don’t look the best right out of the box either.
re Kindle etc. a criticism I’ve read of their iPad wannabe is that it’s basically Linux - like Android is too - but without the functionality of Android...i.e. you can’t access Goonball’s Play Store like you can with Android devices. As I understand it, that paper white device is just a bog standard reader, whilst the iPad wannabe is marketed as more of an Android type tablet...but walled in, like Apple’s devices...without as good an app store as either. Oh, you were asking before about things that bug you for tablets or whatever...I’ll surf onto a website and the page frankly throbs...I’ll try reading it but as I scroll past large pictures, the print expands and contracts. Annoying. Also annoying...Wikipedia for mobile devices...desktop version you can navigate to what you want to read, but with mobile, often times you’ll have to scroll a mile down for the good stuff.
re Encyclopaedia Britannica...did yous used to get door to door sellers of that? I think that that used to be a thing in Australia. Just looked up “Funk & Wagnalls” on Wikipedia. Apparently they stopped printing in 1997. It has been referenced in popular culture too, like Laugh-in & South Park.
re US spying...this is a massive story in my view. A game changer. I wonder if the US will ever act holier-than-thou when it comes to allegations of Chinese spying. Perhaps the Chinese’ “great wall of China” is the rational response to US spying? Found some interesting stories on my DuckDuckGo app feed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/business/fallout-from-snowden-hurtin g-bottom-line-of-tech-companies.html?_r=0
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26581130
From the above link, here’s an interesting quote from the owner of US company Lavabit, who closed his business rather than giving open slather to the US government to conduct spying on his clients:
“I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.”
I think that the first link mentions some US companies stating that they’re doing that...moving data to Australia or whatnot...that’s negligible action...if companies with ties to the US are suspect (which I think that they are), then US companies moving data to Australia is no better...as our former Prime Minister John Howard (conservative) stated, he viewed Australia as America’s “deputy sheriff” in the region. Yuh.
From my point of view, this is a case of universal surveillance on a global scale...without a court order. Now, the US may very well have voted for a government to universally spy on them (which they didn’t, right?), but can the US people vote to have the world spied on? Not sure if I read an article or posted it last time re suggestions that the US may be spying on foreign companies etc for economic purposes. We just don’t know. Any person or company which has data with US cloud services must be aware that the US could be spying on it without a court order or ‘probable cause’. This is a massive development. The internet has been compromised. It’s Orwellian in scope. Basically everyone is having their correspondence skim read by the US, without probable cause. Related...where I live, there has been stories in the past year or so about police databases being illegally accessed by the police...just to snoop around and check up on celebrities etc. The difference with the US is that there is somehow a fiction that what the US is doing is legal. Remembered something after writing this, the next day, I think...there was also a story here concerning the internet habits of our state parliament - I think - ...apparently pornography is viewed...think it was the Hun newspaper seeking to have the details of which MPs use parliament PCs to view that or whatever...not in the public interest to divulge that, the government says. I’m sure that the US is the same...Heaven forbid that we know who surfs the web for porn in the White House and the capital...but they need all the juicy titbits of our web surfing activities...event he non-Americans. That’s what we’re dealing with here.
Sort of related...got a newsfeed in my DuckDuckGo app about the anonymous web network “Tor”. Following links or whatever, I think I sussed out that this protocol was basically promoted by the US secret services. No, not to protect dissidents and whistle-blowers, but to protect US spies! I.e. if only US spies were using Tor, then you can suss out that anyone using it must be a US spy. Spreading it around to ordinary people makes US spies more invisible using it. Tor is available on Apple, I believe...perhaps not via their App store?
re pigeons only interested in beating previous times...um...no...I actually think that that is a human urge! Think there’s a documentary on this kind of thing...for one game “The king of kong” and no doubt similar to Pac-Man...do seem to remember an Australian, perhaps, getting the world record highest score for that.
re Pr. Richard Dawkins...he gets described as an ‘evangelical’ atheist! Interestingly - for me at least! - I learned he is married to Llala Ward...who was at one time married to Tom Baker...after both working together on Doctor Who, where Tom played the titular character and she played one of his own kind...i.e. both same race from same planet. She was actually one of my favourite ‘companions’ from the series.
re Portlandia better if you knew how much their loan was...really? You amuse me some time...you were also asking for realism in that key sketch by The Elegant Gentleman! Couldn’t view a Portlandia You Tube via my DuckDuckGo news feed (yes, Portlandia seems to be a ‘news’ feed there! so I’ll spoiler myself with this (hmm...caught up with an ep on PVR last night {24/03/2014}...it featured this sketch...odd...the ABC must be ‘fast tracking’ this show...perhaps they were ‘burning’ eps - to my annoyance - to catch up to the US?)…
Social bankruptcy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz-7d3HZE7o
That Indian looking guy is in there too...talking about Twitter...you said you were on that too. Do you ‘follow’ people? Celebrities? It all seems pretty pointless to me, but maybe that’s just the West...you do see in the news how revolutionary/transformative the platform is in oppressive countries.
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
re tv shows...it’s unusual of me, I suppose, to stop watching Sleepy Hollow when I heard it was renewed, right? For you it’s the opposite, isn’t it? I.e. you’ll commit if the show gets renewed, right?
I got an unfortunate reminder watching The Simpsons, I think...saw an ad for the new 24...just when I thought I was out! Not sure if I mentioned it last time, but the network here showing Weeds seemed to have jumped the gun screening that show so stopped midway or whatever through the final ever series and started repeating eps from previous series. Still inclined to get the disc of the final series...because of the network’s annoying habit of starting early or late...since I can’t buffer exactly how much I’D like to, I waste space also series recording what comes after that show. PVR near 45% full now. Also, The Walking Dead returned for the 2nd series...not much of a break. Give me a break!
There was an interesting editorial in The Age’s Green Guide (tv guide lift-out) about two current series...the European “The returned” and the soon to screen US show “Resurrection”. Both sound spookily similar (the US series is based on a book called…”The returned”)...a little child returns from the dead. Apparently the US series is all Jesusy. Hmm. That put me off The Sarah Connor Chronicles when that stuff got going. Wasn’t sad to see that show axed. First ep of s2 of The Walking Dead had that too. That stuff bugs me. Not seen/plan to watch either show. Just interesting how two near identically premised shows both are on tv without someone suing someone else!
Also recording the US series “The spoils of Babylon”. Will watch it later. It seems a parody of 1970s mini-series etc. Think I mentioned a while back an Australian show called “Danger5”, which has a similar aesthetic...wonder when that returns...Wiki says 2014, but no exact date. There was also an unsuccessful parody series by members of the D Generation - whom I’ve covered here before...they did the It’s Academic parody - called “Funky squad”. Not a success that one. Thought I’d watch the US series after seeing this trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=557wYv4edVQ
That slap scene is funny but reminds me of stuff being done here decades ago by ex D Generation members/shows...found something along those lines here...but it has more overkill than I remember...sometimes subtlety is best! Anyway, it’s a parody of loads of Australian soapies...many of which were/are huge in the UK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dbQGZwqYQ8
re not trusting Wikipedia re literacy...couldn’t find those stats in my last post here but generally they’d have good sources for such references, you’d think. Have heard of studies or whatever where they mention that Wikipedia compares more than favourably with Encyclopaedia Britannica etc. as far as accuracy goes in scientitif entries or whatnot.
re taking away kid’s calculators and computers...recalling the Monty Python sermon on the mount scene in The Life Of Brian...wouldn’t doing that lead to us ‘knowing’ things like Jesus taught that “Blessed are the cheese makers”? And academics would debate whether he intended to me the dairy industry in general? I suppose with something like maths, you’d want them to be taught the mechanics of working puzzles out, so they’d have to be able to show that, not just allow them to use calculators.
Speaking of Asian scholarly success...was reading somewhere that that is a new kind of racism...whereas before, perhaps, you’d characterise them as being stupid or whatever, now it’s how smart they are academically...not sure what the racists’ ‘take home’ message from that would be though…
Hmm...not sure if I’ve heard of Asian kids committing suicide because of failing these rigourous maths courses or whatever.
re telling kids that they ‘gave a good effort’’’...gosh, I walked into a uni class and was told I had got some sort of ‘award’ by the tutor...cynic that I am I wondered aloud “Did everyone get this?”...no...just me...makes me wonder if I scarred anyone in class...next time they win an award, will they wonder if everyone got one?
I got a free version of an app which is kinda/sorta/maybe similar to that brain training site mentioned in the docu by the Gruen Transfer panellist. Paid for the upgrade. Had a power blackout momentarily the other night and when I accessed my tablet, the upgrade disappeared. Having to deal with that now. Not using it a whole lot, but also has a speed reading feature/exercises. I’m sad that you didn’t praise me for wiping out all humanity on my 4th attempt for Plague Inc. Apparently it’s on Apple to. Like I said, I uninstalled it...just tappety tappety all the time. Speaking of which, I got a clone of a clone game...based on the now removed Flappy Birds app. Notoriously difficult tappety tappety game. You fly a - bird/whatever - between gaps in columns. On my knock off of a knock off I got a high score last night of 8. Unusual for me. Common scores for me are binary numbers! Wonder how many good players get...I’m really pathetic, perhaps. Won’t be playing that game a huge amount...just too...random.
re argument clinic sketch real world applications...sure, why not? “The customer is always right”...sure, many times they are not, but surely game developers and web designers sometimes overestimate their design brilliance? Just grind the bastards down who insist on defending their poor design decisions with that guy! Break them! Bad!
re bad British commentary...it did occur to me that maybe some of the humour relied on understanding that the Brit was using terminology from other sports to get laughs...maybe that might go over Americans heads...as in being clueless about the provenance of the terminology being used. Speaking of lingo...lately got back into playing a Scrabble clone on my tablet. Been emailing the Help section. Hate how the game beats me/thrashes me with BS words. The Help guy isn’t a native English speaker and thinks English is just one language. Game allows loads of obscure Scottish dialect words and worse. Before my save data got erased I did beat the hardest difficulty level once, at least. Now I’m up to over 100 games sans a victory over that level! Mainly focusing on bumping my average...currently almost 18 points per word, I think. Recently I’ve taken to only starting a game if I’m happy with my starting letters...I’m inclined to think that if I open with a Bingo (use all letters) the game will delight in tearing me to tiny little pieces...multiple Bingos of its own and more than doubling my score. My highest score is 360...game has gotten over 700 more than once against me!
re scents in stores...think I’ve mentioned before supermarkets here wafting hot bread smells throught the stores. Not sure if I mentioned supermarkets here rearranging item places in shelves/aisles. Heard that that’s to make people aware of other aisles...in case you get into auto-pilot mode!
re swayed by reviews...I’ve got a thread here called something like “Is it worth watching the US version of LOM?”. Think you replied on that. That’s basically the same thing, right? Have noticed sometimes I’ll watch At The Movies here and think I may watch a movie. when it gets a reasonable score. Then I might read the Hun and the reviewer gives a bad score...so I don’t end up going. Of course, with some movies they’re just critic proof...like Avatar 2, I assume.
re word count...think I usually link to articles more than you...if you count that in the word count! The record is yours, I take it? Succinctness never was your forte, was it?
Gerbil worm count: 4,766
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
Well, I had been saying how my Macs had never frozen on me, and so this one had to go and make me a liar. It was a simple fix of hold down the power until it turned off, and it started right up when I turned it back on, but it did freeze. Fingers crossed this isn’t going to become a common occurrence.
Re wild weather- In the past, it was uncommon to see many cities get into the 40s C, unless you were in the southwest or plains. In those cases, places like Phoenix, Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada, Houston, Texas will usually get up there a couple of times during the summer months. Within the past couple of years more and more cities are getting hotter in the summer. Think it was last summer or the one before that was super hot for most of the country, and places like New York were seeing extended periods of high 30s, breaking 40 maybe once or twice. Makes it worse because people up around New York and such aren’t used to dealing with that kind of heat. Heck, there are places up there that don’t have aircon simply because the weather usually doesn’t call for it.
Re Goodies String ad music- doesn’t ring any particular bells. The currant drink sounds like it might be some kind of free use classical, and the string one just reminds me of generic 80s music.
Re reverse call Checkout clip- You never hear about these companies in the US anymore. During the 90s, there was 1-800-Collect over here, whose spokesman was Mr. T. Mr. T was a character from the tv show The A-Team. Big black guy that wore a bunch of gold chains and jewelry and had a Mohawk. His catch phrase was “I pity the fool.” Can’t remember the last time I saw an advert for a reverse call company.
The end of the Checkout bit reminded me of this old insurance commercial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs
By the time this was on the airwaves, I think the collect call commercials were pretty much non-existent.
The chlorophyll thing sounds like just the latest in the health food industry scams of ‘this comes from nature so it must be good!’ Never mind there is no proven information that it is actually good for you.
As for brands selling themselves differently to consumers vs retailers, I can understand that. Retailers you have to convince they will make money from carrying you product vs consumers actually using the product(s). At the end of the day business is business.
Re cold drugs- You mentioned Stilnox, which over here is marketed as Ambien and Ambien CR. Think this was the sleep aid that several months back there were some news stories that the medicine didn’t leave the bloodstream as fast as the label claimed, and there were people who took it according to directions and were falling asleep at the wheel well past when they were supposedly okay to be driving. If I remember correctly it had something to do with the differences in how male and female bodies process certain drugs; that women had a lower metabolism rate for the Ambien than men did or something.
I don’t understand why you’d want anti-bacterial throat lozenges anyway. There are too many places in the body that need good bacteria to operate correctly, and anti-bac stuff tends to screw it up. And we have enough super bugs to worry about as is with people not taking anti-bac scripts properly. God only knows how much worse it’ll get with anti-bac cough drops.
Did the Sudafed have caffeine in it by chance? There would have to be some kind of drug in those types of meds to help counterbalance their tendency to knock people out.
No Doz over here was, at one point, pushed mainly for truckers or other people driving a long way and in danger of nodding off. Since then it has joined in the mess of other energy drinks that people drink waaaay too much of. Hear more about Monster and Red Bull now.
Re Micallef High Horse- Men Without Hats ‘Safety Dance’ was featured on the vid that came up. Had a friend in 7th grade that was obsessed with that song. The bit about the kids’ medicine, that warning is standard for pretty much all meds over here. Within about the last 10 years or so they’ve started selling some meds in arthritic friendly bottles that are supposed to be easier to get the caps off, but there is always the warning that those bottles shouldn’t be in a house with children. The keep away from children warning is so that if the kid tries to dose themselves it isn’t the company’s fault if the kid overdoses.
Re generic drugs- I know generics are supposed to be the same as the name brand, but I’ve been on prescription meds before where the pharmacy I’ve gotten it filled at switched between generic and name brand without asking, and my body could tell the difference. I think the fillers are what change, but there was a change that my body could tell. With that one it preferred the generic to the name brand.
Re audio platforms- with vinyl vs cd, I find sometimes it isn’t the cleanest one I prefer. Like with the Hotel California record the record player hiss added something. Might just be a nostalgia thing. Don’t know if I’d buy any new music on vinyl. Like you pointed out tends to be really expensive.
The songs purchased from iTunes store were downloaded in AAC format. Sure that was just the default setting.
Use the same headphones to listen to the different ipods. I don’t use the highest quality headphones, but that is more because I actually like to be able to hear some of what is going on around me; all the mid to high level ones seem to have noise cancelation features that block too much out. For years my favourite pair was the one that came with the old ipod. Then got a new puppy and she decided to chew them up while was out one day. Have a set that is bottom line Sony that use in house mostly that aren’t bad, and two pairs of earbud ones that are meh. The one blocks out too much noise, sound is only meh, and the cord is stiff and wants to do what it wants to do. The other pair lets a decent amount of outside sound through, the cord works well, but the music sound quality is lacking. Majority of what see available now are those ones that are shaped more to fit kind of deeper into the ear. Haven’t given any of those kind a go yet.
Was in an electronic department of a store one day that had a range of headphones available to demo, and there were some models that there was a noticeable difference. Think it was a $300 pair that sounded the best, but I can’t imagine paying that much for a pair of headphones, ever. I get a bit miffed that can’t seem to find any pair under $30.
Re Windows 8- from way article read, the 8.1 update was supposed to help appease the “power users” still using Windows. Microsoft now says they will no longer support that update. Seems to me like the only ones they are saying the care about are the casual users, at least as long as they can dictate how those people use their computers. There was this quote
‘Familiarity will always trump good design. Even if something is vastly better, if it is unfamiliar it will be worse. That's why people act like a unicorn was murdered every time facebook releases a new redesign. […] We knew full well casual users wouldn't like it initially. Hopefully in 5 years we'll look back and see we made the right decision.’
To me this says we’re going to do what we want and everyone just has to deal with it. People get pissed about facebook redesign because it is constant; a person’s settings are always changed with each new update so you have to redo them, that’s assuming you can find where the options have been moved to, if the ability to control a particular aspect hasn’t been removed entirely. And the bit about looking back and hoping, in five years the Windows consumers will have adjusted to the new one so even if they do still think it is utter sh*te the company will find enough people to say it is great so yay us. Casual consumers like the ones listed in the article aren’t likely to change OS companies anyway for the same reason they don’t like their old one changing: it’s a hassle. So they’ll stick with Windows because they know the basics, and again numbers will be fine – unless Microsoft manages to pull off something really stupid again, like another Vista disaster.
Re encyclopedia salesmen- at one point in US history there were door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen. I don’t remember anyone coming to our door, however, to sell encyclopedias, or anything other than housing repairs, lawn services, or the Boy Scouts trying to sell popcorn or Christmas wreaths. There are some door-to-door people in some areas still, but it’s been a dying job for decades. My guess would be sometime in the 1980s is when it really started to take a dive.
Re spying- still can’t find it in myself to get really worked up over it. Still believe every country that has the tech and the money available has a spy system set up like the NSA, or like what everyone now imagines the one at NSA to be like. As I said before, this spy crap has ALWAYS gone on. Early on the spying would have been more focused, but as technology and techniques have evolved and expanded, so too has the number of people and businesses being directly watched and data kept. The public ‘outrage’ by countries that the US was caught spying on is because that is what is expected, and behind closed doors I’m sure those countries’ intelligence agencies are laughing at the US incompetence. Also, any foreign data, business, junk, whatever that is stored in any country is going to look suspicious to the country that is housing the storage. In plain words, if a Japanese company wants to store its data on Austrian servers, the Austrians are going to be curious as to why, and what said data is.
The e-mail service guy in the BBC article is a joke. So he had one service that the government wanted access to, he decided he didn’t want to give that access, shut down one company in America and will create another e-mail service still in AMERICA. How long will this one last before the government comes asking for something that he doesn’t want to give out and he shuts that one down?
I think at the heart of this whole mess is that the average person had one of their reality perception bubbles popped and now they’re upset. For years the internet was sold a place that a person could be fairly anonymous and do what they wanted, and now people are realizing that most likely isn’t the case. Probably also the idea because-it-is-me-it-could-affect-it-is-horrible. I bet if you took an anonymous poll and asked people if they thought it was okay to spy on others if their own personal privacy was ensured, there would be a lot of people saying the spying is justified.
Re Portlandia ‘Social Bankruptcy’- God this feels so accurate. They could have gone one step further and had it effect the job as well since over here there are employers that want to keep track of employees that way (pretty sure we’ve discussed that before). Yeah, I’m on Twitter. Follow some channels because it is the easiest way on knowing when shows are going to start. Follow a couple of shows’ handles for behind the scene stuff, a couple fan accounts that the runners have set been able to get in good graces with some people that make the show the acct is for and get some exclusive material, couple news feeds, and some tv people that have to travel to exotic locations and post pics to their feed. I use twitter as a cheap way to “see” places I will likely never in person, and as a fast way to keep up with some news.
Re tv shows- I had plans to watch S1 of Sleepy Hollow anyway, but it is nice being able to know from the start if it will continue so I know how much to invest in it. Like if I’ve DVR’d a show that I know has been axed I might still watch it, but know not to get too into the story since there won’t be an ending beyond the season finale. When I know it has been renewed there is more effort to remember the little details about this or that in case it matters for later in the story. The most annoying shows I find are the ones that a channel will pick up from another country to air when they know that show has been axed, or very likely to be axed, and it ends on a major cliffhanger. Would rather they just show reruns.
Re similar tv shows- it happens quite a bit. Whoever had the rights to the book probably sold it to someone in Europe and someone in the US. They’re different markets which could also have something to do with it. It’s like when there is a Brit version of a show made and a US version…. and a Spanish, and a Russian, etc. When something is or sounds popular the rights holders try to cash in on it. It also happens over here where one channel will have a super successful show, say a cop drama, and then next season all the channels will come out with a cop drama or two and for a season or two the market will be saturated with cop dramas. Then the failures get axed and the networks are on to try to figure out the next ‘thing’ for tv.
Sounds like Australia is really behind on Walking Dead. Don’t watch it, but pretty sure S4 finished airing here about a month ago. Never heard of “The Spoils of Babylon.” Preview made it sound like some kind of Dallas spoof with some Romeo and Juliet thrown in for good measure.
Re no computers or calculators- what I meant by that is wanting the kids to know how to do it by hand before just being handed a machine that can do everything. I’m horrible at math, but we had to show how we got the answer beyond just typing it into a calculator. And I don’t think it would be a bad idea if a kid knew how to spell without relying on spell check for the simplest of words, or how to find information in a book, though the way things are going books will probably be obsolete in a couple decades.
Re Asian racism- they’ve been going for several years over here about how saying all Asians are good at math/science/school is racist. It’s because it is a stereotype. I think the argument then goes that the Asian kids that aren’t good at math/school/science get issues because everyone expects them to be good and comments when they aren’t.
Not sure what you’re talking about with the Asian kids committing suicide.
Re reviews- I’m talking more professional reviewers, or at least people that get paid to do the review. There are some blog review type posts that I think people get paid for, but they definitely aren’t very professional about it. With IMDB, I feel like you can get a more rounded feeling about the show/movie, or at least used to. Last few times I came looking for info about show or movie and they were very polarized posts and most pretty immature. Have been one or two I’ve looked at over the years where the majority of the posts are just about the hotness/sexiness of one of the actors/actresses. I often wonder exactly how much of the internet has been taken over by teenage girls, or those with the mentality of teenage girls.
Re word count- I tend to be all or nothing. Either I can ramble on and on for a subject or have nothing to say. Not much middle ground.
MS Word Count: 2780
The suspense is killing me! Your Mac freezing any more on you?
re the heat...in recent years here there’s been news reports of people dying from the heat, especially the elderly. I think there was a story from Adelaide about councils - perhaps - keeping open bus terminals or something to accommodate homeless people or something...the place has air-con. Bit vague on specifics, but something along those lines. Hmm...a week or so back there was a news report about the ice sheets in the Antarctic getting bigger. The other day (it’s 22/05 as I started replying to you) there was a news story about record low ice sheets there. As a non-scientist, I’ve got to say it’s hard to be sure about these stories when they so regularly contradict each other (seemingly). Maybe it reflects on the level of journalism...as in it’s of poor quality. Over here, the coverage is split among media ownership lines...the Murdoch side are climate change deniers. Wish I could locate that US based cartoon about George The W’s response to climate change...something silly like umbrellas for everybody...kudos if you can find it! The other day (yesterday? today’s 27/05) ABC here had another story about record Antarctic ice sheet melts...irreversible they say. Forget the time frame to increase sea levels...100 years? 1000 years? Something like that.
re The Goodies’ string music reminding you of generic 1980s music...not me. Not sure if the programme made it through to the 1980s. Doubt if it was forward looking either! Guessing it’s either 1970’s or 1980’s music they used. Do you have music identifying apps? I don’t have my devices near each other and organising it is pretty irritating...maybe you could try it if it’s convenient? What is the default iStore app for identifying music? I’ve got Sound Hound and more recently the Google one. Did have another one but deleted it...possibly because it’s just another app which seeks waaay to many permission...Music X Match I think it might have been called. Don’t use these apps much but recently the kind of music I’ve been searching (did briefly listen to a local indie music station) and Sound Hound gave me false answers and Google got them right. Hopefully I’m telling you something you don’t know and maybe this can be an ‘exciting’ project for you?
Interesting You Tube of yours for reverse call. Maybe The Checkout was aware of stuff like that? That ad you linked to...it was for car insurance? Makes me think they could have been giving ideas to people on how to avoid charges from reverse call companies...even though they said you shouldn’t!
re Stilnox/Ambien - the news stories over here - from memory - concerned very bizarre behaviour of people under the influence...nothing so mundane as falling asleep at the wheel of a car while driving. Maybe something along the lines of being in sleep-walking kind of state...hmm...did I hear a news story about a woman who supposedly had sex with a neighbour under the influence and not happy about that? Dunno. Maybe.
re me having anti-bacterial throat lonzenges...it’s not like I sought it out...more along the lines of me thinking: “Well, they wouldn’t have anti-bacterial ingredients if it wasn’t relevant for sore throats, right?”. You do remind me though of the overprescription of anti-biotics by doctors though, leading to “superbugs”...you saying the throat lozenges the same kind of thing? Just btb, years ago when I read a headline of something like “Man eaten by bug” or “Man’s face eaten by bug” I thought (can you guess?)...insects eating people! Probably didn’t have this conversation with you but I do remember responding to someone mentioning something in the bible about a prohibition of eating kids or something of that sort...can you guess where I went with that?
re Sudafed...had a closer look at the packet and I may have got my wires crossed before. Looking at the packet now, it says “Phenylephrine may cause sleeplessness in some people” and “Chlorpheniramine may cause drowsiness”. Would have counted on the latter for the ‘Night’ pills to send me to sleep. What’s interesting is that the latter is mixed with the former for the ‘Night’ pills...and that was maybe what I was getting at last time...without going over my previous reply. As a non-medically trained person it just seems odd that you can mix together something that causes sleeplessness and something which makes you drowsy and have it promoted as something which “allows rest”...do they cancel each other out? Anyway, I don’t see any caffeine listed for the product, to answer your question.
Have recently seen No Doz over here...think students are part of their target market. I do wonder about energy drinks though...they actually have warning for pregnant women not to drink it! And have heard - maybe even Mythbusters covered this - how cola drinks can break down tough solids or something...a good cleaner product or something...from memory.
re “Safety dance”...could never work out what that women sings…”Bom see”? WTF? French?
re You being able to tell generic from brand name drugs...think I heard of some research that even when people know something is a placebo, it is still effective! Maybe even that placebos are more effective than drugs! Or maybe just that expensive placebos work better than cheap generics...or something. Sorry to be so vague again...be good if I could bookmark these stories in my brain...and be able to find them in a second!
re audio platforms...I heard about the ‘famous’ US “Nuggets” box set and got that. From that I heard of other similar compilations, like “Pebbles” and “Back from the grave”. The sound quality got progressively worse for each franchise...I had them all on CD, but these were 1960s ‘garage’ music vinyl titles...not a fan of the sound of BFTG in any case...very scratchy/hissy. Goes to show that even in the ‘good old days’ of vinyl there were cheap and nasty producers!
re AAC on iTunes...Wikipedia says that it’s a step up from MP3 but still not as good as ALAC, which is Apple’s lossless format. Not sure if I said before, but did hear something about Apple now allowing you to ‘update’ your library with the higher quality codec.
I don’t have an iPod or portable like that...I do have earbuds for when I’m out and about and use a public PC or whatever to listen to a You Tube. Generally I like to listen to music at home so like the sound to be quite good. Was very happy with my Sonys but they are pretty tatty now. Need to get a new one. Have heard of there being electrostatic headphones going for thousands of dollars...if I win the lotto...maybe. At the time, my Sony’s cost a packet...from memory something like $270. Not sure if the same model number selling online now is exactly the same or not, but it was under $100! re earbuds...from memory, I think I was happy with a pair of Sony earbuds...possibly under $30. Think I lost them. From memory, I’ve seen some name brands with earbuds costing at least $150...possibly double or worse. I’m all for good quality earbuds for listening to You Tube on the go or whatever, but for ‘real’ listening I want good quality over ear headphones...think they’re called “closed back”. One PC mag is big fan of a certain headphone/microphone set. They cost under $300. The preferred set are “over ear” and the mag says that has great range. Did read some specs somewhere and the closed back has greater bass response. My old, disgusting Sonys are closed back and my benchmark. Did research recently and found that their current flagship, I think, costs about $500. Did see some electrostatic headphones (with amp, I think) for around $600, which seems cheap. Sorry if I’m boring you! Actually adding a bunch of headphones into my online shopping cart...might research them some more and pick one...not sure if one brand is getting the “Australia tax” at the site...i.e. being sold for a premium to the Australian user...think it was the PC mag recommended headphone. Might check out the distributor mentioned in the mag for a cheaper price.
re MS Windows 8.1 quote from suit...sounds like an old quote. The main bugbear as I understand it is that PC users are unhappy that their UI is basically designed to tablet/touch screen users...they are really unhappy about that. Speaking of FaceBook, as you were...there was a really aggro editorial about FaceBook’s take over of Oculus Rift in an Australian PC gaming mag, I think...yeah...bought the current issue and another author responded to that previous month’s piece and said they were happy with it. Oculus Rift is a 3D virtual reality gaming goggle...exciting a lot of gamers...some of whom think that FaceBook is like the Dark Lord.
re door to door sales people...in recent years vacuum salesman have been making the news in Australia. They get invited in and don’t leave until they get the sale. Old people mostly, I think. They do an impressive demo on cleaning pillows or some such and then reveal the price tag...I dunno...maybe $3,000? But you can have it in installments! Have heard that vacuum cleaners for around $1,000 have the same cleaning abilities. You get those in the US? I’m guessing you do...not sure that Australia makes vacuum cleaners. We won’t be making cars for too much longer either. Remember Mr. Speedos? He’s PM now. Dared the car makers to leave. They did. Not sure if he was expecting that! So, no more Ford here, noreGM(H).
I did hear that Mr. Speedos went global the other day. You see this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo_fQ0gfCn8
Mr Speedos doesn’t control both houses and is threatening and double dissolution election if his budget isn’t passed...given his abysmal ratings in the wake of a tough budget I’m not sure that is the smartest move! No doubt The Roast has also covered the winkgate...which is apperently what it’s being dubbed overseas. Oh...whilst I didn’t hear that woman’s original call, I did hear her call back another day...she was saying that she was in fear for her safety as a Murdoch newspaper had identified her and falsely claimed that she was an activist for the opposition party. Forgot to mention re Mr. Speedos...in oppostion he was relentllessly saying “No!” to the Government and portraying the female PM as a liar. The phrase “Hoist by one’s own pettard” springs to mind...he made loads of promises before the election about not raising taxes and now his alreadly mediocre poll stats (even before the election) are going South.
re NSA spying...have to disagree with you...big difference between spying on suspects vs spying on everybody in the world. Hard to even justify spying on an ally of yours (Germany)...but Australia can’t really take the moral high ground on that issue. I like the fact that there is a response to this universal/Orwellian spying by the US...products and services designed to keep spies out. I’d be surprised if what the US is doing isn’t illegal. Where’s the warrants? From my point of view American products and services just seem suspicious as far as being the subject of spying goes. I try and avoid Google as much as possible...ironic at the moment as I’m using its Docs to write this! If I’m in a position to some time, I’ll migrate away from those US social sites. Get the feeling that more and more people are thinking the same way and new email providers etc are marketing themselves and as protecting users’ privacy/security. Maybe the US has now made it harder for itself to track real criminals? I.e. by so publically being revealed to be spying on everybody, criminals are taking extra precautions...and lots of law abiding citizens are optiong out of the US’ Orwellian surveillance.
re:
I bet if you took an anonymous poll and asked people if they thought it was okay to spy on others if their own personal privacy was ensured, there would be a lot of people saying the spying is justified
The e-mail service guy in the BBC article is a joke. So he had one service that the government wanted access to, he decided he didn’t want to give that access, shut down one company in America and will create another e-mail service still in AMERICA.
Not sure what you’re talking about with the Asian kids committing suicide.
Hmm...not sure if I’ve heard of Asian kids committing suicide because of failing these rigourous maths courses or whatever.
Re Mac freezing- is somehow related to Youtube. Sounds stupid, but whenever it’s frozen it is when multiple YT windows are open. Happened a few other times, but has behaved for the last couple weeks.
Re heat- there are usually a few heat related deaths each year around here. They’re normally older people who have never had aircon and think that they are fine toughing it out at home, but age and heat catches up to them. There are guidelines for opening cooling shelters for when the temps and heat indexes get excessive. They are places that the homeless and people who don’t have aircon in their homes can go to, and are encouraged to do so, especially in the afternoon. Most of the time they are homeless shelters and libraries, with the libraries staying open later than normal hoping people stay until about 7 or 8 pm so the built-up heat can start dissipating at least a little.
Re bad journalism- saw this story today where BBC was getting on its people to stop inviting “crank scientists” on so that science stories would have more than one opinion, particularly when the other opinion is of dubious nature, like climate change deniers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10944629/BBC-staff-t old-to-stop-inviting-cranks-on-to-science-programmes.html
re music ID apps- my phone that I got in spring ’09 had something like this on it, and it isn’t a smart phone! But we don’t have any kind of data plan, so can’t use it. Could probably find an app to put on the iTouch that would work, but again, no data plan, so there has to be wifi available to use them properly. While wifi is getting easier to find over here, if heard a song wanted to ID, by the time I logged on to the wifi and got the app open, the song would probably be over. There was one app called Shazam that I think started out sort of music based, like to help ID songs used in commercials that you wanted to find, but has expanded for tv shows with behind the scene and extra stuff. Have to use it while the show is on, though, so have never used it. Don’t understand the push to get people involved in stuff online while a show is airing on tv. Personally, when I sit down to watch a show, I want to watch the show, not mess around on the computer, or tablet.
Re Stilnox/Ambien- have also heard stories in past of people doing things in sleepwalking state. Used to hear more about it. Guess it became too common to bother reporting, but not common enough for the media to make a big deal of it.
Re anti-bacteria stuff- anything with anti-bacteria elements in it can go towards creating more anti-biotic resistant bacteria, which in turn leads to superbugs. Only some sore throats are bacteria related. Most are just irritated due to sinus drainage, or coughing due to any number of causes where bad bacteria isn’t present in the throat. Like if I get a sinus infection, gunk is draining into the throat, causing coughing and irritating it, but the bacteria causing all the problems is higher up. Taking anti-bacterial lozenges wouldn’t help get rid of the sinus infection and would just be dumping meds into the body that aren’t necessary. Odds are if you have a bacteria infection in the throat, you’ll probably needs a doctor; or at least over here you’d need to see one to get the appropriate meds due to how meds are regulated.
The other problem with anti-bacteria stuff is that it can also kill off the good bacteria the body needs for certain processes. There’s all sorts of bacteria throughout the digestive track that helps the process along that without digestion wouldn’t work. That is why some anti-bacteria meds can cause certain side effects, because they are interfering with the good bacteria as well.
Thought this chart I saw recently re bacteria and old treatment resistance
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/antibiotic-resist ance/
re Sudafed- Because I’m nerdy looked up the phenylephrine and that can cause blood pressure to go up, which might be why it causes sleeplessness. Looked the other one up, and sounds like it does about the same thing, so does seem to be a bit of a counter to the first one.
Re caffeine drinks- there are some sodas that the caffeine content is so high they tell pregnant women not to drink them. Don’t know if we’ve ever brought it up, but have you seen the pics of spider webs made by spiders on various drugs? (Didn’t read this write-up, but the pics were what I was looking for.)
http://www.kscience.co.uk/resources/ks3/drugs/spider_experiments.htm
Re cola cleaner- there are all kinds of lists on the net about how you can use Coke in particular to clean stuff. We had a drain blockage one time because my dad decided to put certain parts of lettuce down the garbage disposal – managed to block it so bad the water and other gunk in the pipes came up through the sink in the basement and flooded it. Poured some a few can of Diet Coke down the kitchen sink, let set, repeat twice more, and by the next night it was draining normal and nothing spewing out of the one in the basement. Have also poured flat one into toilet that sat for a bit, and bowl was actually cleaner than when the soda had been poured in. Also happened with a flat root beer, but that didn’t clean as well as the Diet Coke.
Re Safety Dance- Always thought she said “And sing”.
Re Microsoft quote- wish I had kept the exact article I had pulled the quote from, but googling it seems like it came out about mid February of 2014. So not really that old.
Re Facebook buying Oculus- seems like Facebook is trying to get a hold of everything these days. Don’t know why a company can’t do one or two things well instead of doing a bunch of things half-@$$ed.
Re Abbot- I do remember him making news over here about a wink, but the footage they showed wasn’t from a radio interview. Think it was at some international invent.
Re spying-
I bet if you took an anonymous poll and asked people if they thought it was okay to spy on others if their own personal privacy was ensured, there would be a lot of people saying they spying was justified
[Oh, glad to see that I my attempt to post a reply to you yesterday (17/07/2014) didn’t get up in truncated form...yes, two parter coming up! Hopefully it won’t be too tricky to find your new additions...I have the feeling that there was something in your previous post which I wanted to respond to but forgot to...perhaps because when I returned to your post I didn’t see it….and you don’t appear to have edited that, at least when I got back to it for my reply.]
re Mac freezing on You Tube. Sort of related, my Android tablet always has app updates and I’ve updated You Tube in the past, but for whatever reason - probably poor performance with the ‘new and improved’ app (!) - I’m now sticking with the original version of it. Not sure, maybe bloody Google is another reason for that...i.e. intrusive permissions. My apps have ‘related’ links and many of them seem dodgy to me...i.e. malware or whatnot. Maybe you have a browser issue? I’ve used PCs at some venues and the PC would often freeze...e.g. with multiple tabs open...sometimes just the one...it was suggested to me that sites like this could be creating stability issues for their PCs even with only one tab open...which is weird.
re BBC banning crank ‘scientists’...came across that story myself. Good to hear. Over here, it’s pretty much the Murdoch press which give free publicity to these guys. The Australian equivalent (the ABC, which, unlike the BBC) has its funding at the whim and mercy of hostile governments (even the Australian Labor [sic.] Party) so the ABC often have conservative voices to ‘balance’ out the perceived ‘leftist’ bias of the ABC. Conservatives are in power now (Mr. Speedo’s party), so they’re under attack now...the ABC board now is also being stacked with conservatives...some even hostile to its very existence! Yuh.
You reminded me of that music ID app which I couldn't think of before, “Shazam”. That might have been one I looked at for my Android but perhaps the permissions scared me off. Did briefly have Music X-Match or whatever it is called and probably ditched it for similar reasons. They got my personal data no doubt. Guessing that with such apps on your phone you’d only have to touch the app to get it to work...be surprised if there is any sort of “logging on” process involved! Amusingly, I tried humming some songs I knew into one of my apps...got it completely wrong...a real “WTF?” moment. Reading user reviews on the app store one guy pretty much doubted that the app ever got a song right for someone humming...which made me feel better...my humming is pretty hit and miss!
re interactive tv - agree with you. Very occasionally I watch Q&A on ABC TV...a panel show with politicians usually, an audience and live Tweeting. The Tweets on screen are a distraction and only rarely does one stand out. Oh, reminds me...got a laugh some weeks back on that show...there was a US physicist on the panel commenting on Mr. Budgie Smuggler’s “Chaplains for schools” programme (actually, it think it was his predecessor conservative leader PM, Mr. Eyebrows who came up with that gem). Mr. Speedo’s line is that chaplains aren’t allowed to proselytize and your scientist came up with the zinger that that is like asking clowns to your school and now allowing them to be funny. I think that line became a ‘thing’...meme or whatever. Anyway, back to your point...I did enjoy the fake Tweets on The Chaser’s CNNNNN, I think it was...but that forced me to rewatch those scenes for either the Tweets or the rest of it. They did it with their Hamster Wheel series too.
re Stilnox/Ambien stories being rare nowadays...another possibility we may be missing is that perhaps that doctors are more unlikely to prescribe it now because of its ‘issues’?
Glad to be talking about bacteria (!!). I caught up with a 2 part documentary made here on the subject. Since you later mention IMDB lists etc, it’s a show I want to put in my List of the greatest tv shows of all time...not listed here though. Probably top 10 worthy...along with a UK docu series “The ascent of money”, I think it is called. The bacteria series “Life on us” was magnificent. It mentioned some stories I’d read in the news before...e.g. that thing about humans being 90% bacteria by cell count and that story about (cover your eyes!) poo transplants. Oddly, an expert in the series stated that humans are 90% poo...which is a different formulation of the statistic...made me wonder if it was accurate!
Since the show isn’t up on IMDB, I’ll probably have to review it on Word Press...would have done anyway, since I’ve got tonnes of notes on it and IMDB has a word limit for reviews. Really want to use my review as crib notes. With “Ascent” series I just jotted down the interesting topics covered without going into them (that review is at this site). With “Life on us”, I really want to chuck all the facts into my review. IMDB has such an annoyingly geeky process for adding titles to the database so that you can review them etc. You want to have a crack at Life On Us for me? I’ll give a burl sometime myself...think I’ve tried to get titles up here maybe 3 times. Perhaps I only succeeded once. Wish that they had staff to do this technical donkey work!
Speaking as you were of ‘good bacteria’, I bought a couple of slabs of Yakult. Not really sure of the ‘ideal’ time to drink those. Pretty much “whenever”? Thinking that it might be good to drink, I used to get it regularly but since I moved, it wasn’t readily available in places I bought snacks. Got a good sized fridge now and live near a supermarket, so only recently remembered to get back into Yakult.
Back to Life On Us...loads of interesting analysis on that. Seems that most Western diseases stem from an imbalance in bacteria numbers/variety. Even ‘good’ bacteria can turn bad - maybe deadly? - if there is too much of it. The series really opened up my eyes to how central bacteria is to our identity/well being.
Sort of related, there was a story online about how a med student was legally challenging Dr. Oz or something (not heard of him...thought it was Dr. Phil...who I don’t watch in any case). Apparently Dr. Oz’ advice is dodgy and he recommends herbal remedies a lot. Which makes me wonder if he has endorsements with them that he perhaps does not disclose.
re sinus infection...reminds me of a story in Life On Us...one doctor was introducing worms into a patient for health benefits. The eggs or whatever wind up in the lungs, which are coughed up and swallowed...which is how they get into the stomach, where they need to be. Sort of amusingly, for the poo transplant story, there were people coming in off the street to the clinic to hand in plastic bags...which you can guess the contents of! Not sure where that footage was taken...maybe (weakly used) the US...the treatment was so expensive some families were bypassing the treatment system and going for DIY, which is a bit sad...and no loss yucky!
One last comment on Life On Us...one expert noted how it’s often viewed that ‘germs’ are something that we don’t want and want to destroy. His point is that without them we can get sick and die. Things like asthma are basically a reaction to lack of bacteria which is helpful to us...are immune system just goes all Nazi against minor things...like pollen. We NEED germs to regulate our immune system...they’re not necessarily ‘the enemy’.
re Sudafed- Because I’m nerdy looked up the phenylephrine and that can cause blood pressure to go up, which might be why it causes sleeplessness. Looked the other one up, and sounds like it does about the same thing, so does seem to be a bit of a counter to the first one.
Re Safety Dance- Always thought she said “And sing”.
I bet if you took an anonymous poll and asked people if they thought it was okay to spy on others if their own personal privacy was ensured, there would be a lot of people saying they spying was justified
I’m talking hypothetically here. When you get to the level of spying the media’s reported, no one is going to be exempt. But, I think there are a lot of people that will admit anonymously, and I’m mean absolutely no way to tie it back to him/her, that they didn’t care it was happening, as long as it wasn’t happening to them
re Hoover being of his era...it also sort of goes to eternal rule by one particular party...the ‘guardians’ of national security. In that era Australian conservatives tried it on too. Our longest ever serving PM, Sir Robert Menzies (the idol of Mr. Eyebrows) tried to ban the Communist Party Of Australia, I believe, and ran a referendum on it. Australians rejected his move, much to our credit, I think.
Can you expand on your comments about The Tea Party and their problem of privacy? You mention them saying “No” to everything Democrats propose...same here with the budgie smuggler...in opposition, he was even called “Dr. No” by the press, I think. Of course, he takes great umbrage now that his strategy will be employed by the opposition. It’s ironic that everything that Dr. No stood for in his public criticism of the then government, he has now copied...lying, grubby dalliances with minor parties who control the balance of power in the senate etc.
re Asia ‘threat’ to Australia...yeah, I think “The yellow peril” may have even been a concern in the Menzies era...and that whole ‘domino theory’ put out by the CIA etc. re China owning a lot of American debt...from my point of view, the US has habitually pontificated on the necessity of poor countries to honour their debts, not default and be fiscally prudent. Come the GFC, that was all revealed as cant. A case, beforehand, of “Do as we say, not as we do”. It would be extraordinary if the US defaulted on its Chinese debt out of some pretext of moral justification for doing so...i.e. that China is bad, therefore it’s okay to screw them by defaulting on their debts.
Several years ago it seemed like you could find some decent user generated content on the site, but now a lot of it has devolved to fans saying their show/movie/actor is great and trolls trying to stir them up by saying the show/movie/actor is horrible
the broadcaster fondly branded as "sex before soccer"didn’t have it online. I coult have sworn that the phrase was “Soccer Boobs Sex” or something like that, but not according to this SBS soccer commentator (you don’t have to read it, it’s just a source for the phrase I quoted):
The Almighty Johnsons- did you ever tell me about this show, or was that some other site I read it on?
Hmm...not sure if I’ve heard of Asian kids committing suicide because of failing these rigourous maths courses or whatever.
Re freezing Mac- For a browser I usually use Firefox, which has given me the least issues over the years, though I thought I remember hearing they were “improving” something with it a while back. Get sick of all these so called improvements that get rolled out and just screw everything up and a bunch of bug fixes have to be rolled out to get the program to work right, hopefully. With my iTouch there are some apps that are supposed to work on it, and I don’t know if it is due to age or what, but I can’t get them to work. Tried deleting and redownloading a couple times with no success. Irritating how quickly electronics that cost so much money need to be replaced or become obsolete.
As for the PCs you use sometimes, most places have software on the computers to prevent people from downloading programs on to them or that restrict what a person can access from that computer. My experience in the past has been that those programs tend to negatively affect how the machines operate.
Re interactive tv- Over here at least, the thing to do with tv shows now seems to be to get them trending, and to do so they put different hashtags up throughout the show to get responses on twitter. They aren’t as invasive as the show ads that are run at the bottom randomly throughout a show, but still bit annoying. Pretty sure that the channels are trying to use it both for immediate feedback and to see what kind of audience the show pulls and compare that data to something like Nielsen (a company over here that supposedly tracks how many people watch a show, but the way it is done I don’t trust any of the numbers coming out of it).
There is one reality-type show I watch called Face Off that is a competition between make-up artists. (I call it reality-type because any drama in the show is about the make-ups; personal relationships aren’t mentioned beyond so and so has become a friend, and no one is actively trying to sabotage any one else). The show’s gimmick this series is at the end after all the make-ups have been revealed for that week they push you to tweet about your favourite, and at the end of the series the artist that got the most positive tweet throughout the series will get something like $5000 and a randomly drawn name will be drawn from everyone that tweeted in the fan favourite thing and that person will win something. Haven’t mentioned specifically what the prize for the fan will be, yet, and the series is around half over.
Re Stilnox/Ambien- It’s possible it’s being prescribe it less, or it has been reported too much and doesn’t make for an interesting news story anymore.
Re bacteria- haven’t heard the 90% poo statistic before, although there are some people I’ve met where it could easily be 100%! Can’t imagine have the poo transplant done. A regular enema sounds bad enough; one using feces….ugh! But, learning about bacteria balances in the body always makes me realize how simple it is for a person to get majorly sick, and that a lot of these health fads have to do more harm than good. The fads always seem to be pushing for some extreme or the other, and the body just wasn’t designed for it.
Have never hearde of Yakult before. Sounds sort of like a drinkable yogurt.
Re antibiotic resistant chart- Took awhile for me to get it, too. Not a very user-friendly chart, but condenses a lot so not checking over multiple charts.
Re Dr. Oz- Dr. Phil is some kind of shrink (don’t remember if he was a psychologist or psychiatrist or just some kind of counselor, and don’t know if he has a license to practice anymore), whereas Dr. Oz is still a practicing physician, just with a tv show. Oz is also on a show over here called NY Med that is about different cases in an emergency room (think you guys call it trauma department). Reality show type thing, except real cases so not as scripted as typical reality like Big Brother, etc. Both got their tv starts through Oprah. Anyway, from the bits I’ve seen of the Dr. Oz show, he does more bits about foods and lifestyle stuff to help keep a person healthy more that herbal remedies after a person gets sick. Maybe the herbal remedies were on a show I haven’t caught part of. It seems every time a person turns around health people and nutritionists are contradicting what they last said was good for a person. The times I have seen the end of a Dr. Oz show he always ended with saying he doesn’t endorse anything and if you see a product with his name attached to it they are falsely using his name/image and to please report it. Maybe that ending came from the med student going after him. Maybe the med student was just looking for an easy way to pay his student bills.
Re Sudafed ingredients- Think it was a misspeak. I had to read the information a couple different times to grasp what it was saying, and had part of a response written that had to be changed after a last re-reading.
Re spider on caffeine- I don’t remember what the dosage was for those spiders, but caffeine can have some pretty nasty effects on humans when enough is consumed. Luckily it doesn’t hang around our systems for very long, or it isn’t suppose to at least. This vid has been on the ‘popular on youtube’ section of my YT homepage for past several days. More technical than symptomatic, really, but sort of relavent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YOwEqGykDM
Think there is also differing effects depending what it is ingested with. For me, about half a can a soda that contains caffeine is all I can drink before a nasty headache sets in. With tea I can drink more, usually the equivalent of 2+ cups, though this varies some depending on the specific tea. Haven’t found my chocolate limit yet, but Starbucks hot chocolate, one of their small ones is enough to get me jittery, but no headache. The tea is also the only one I’ve found where it helps keep me. Obviously there are different mg levels in different things, but I fully believe the other ingredients play a role.
Re other cola uses- Yeah, here cola is just referring to a general dark soda. I know there was an episode of Mythbusters about the cola myths; pretty sure they only used Coke products. Can’t recall the criminal who tried to destroy a body with it, but do remember the Mythbusters using Coke for tenderizing a very tough steak. Can’t remember how well it worked, though.
The flat root beer did not clean as well as the still fizzy Diet Coke, but that could also be down to a difference in acidity levels of the two sodas.
Re homemade cleaning products- We’ve tried a few around our house with varying success. There is some kind of vinegar mixture my dad prefers to Windex because it doesn’t streak as much. Personally I can deal with a little streaking (imagined or real) over the lasting vinegar smell. Have used baking powder and vinegar to help get a bathroom sink to drain better. Dumped a bleach/water mixture down it first kill any bacteria/mold colonies in the pipe, and then used the baking powder and vinegar. Is fine if the sink doesn’t have a stopper, or an easily removable one, but can be difficult if you have to work around the stopper.
Re Youtube under Google- one of those situations where the ‘improvements’ just hamper. Following comments on YT used to be easy, as the reply was always below the comment it was replying to, but then they changed it so the only way to tell it was a reply was the extra bit by the user name saying it was a reply, but you had to scroll to find it. At least now they seem to have the replies under what they’re to, or as long as the comments are sorted by ‘top comments’. Haven’t figured out what that is supposed to mean.
Re spying permission- it is a matter of “can we do it to person x as long as we don’t do it to you”, and I fully believe most people, or Americans at least, would say yes. Don’t stop to think it could happen to them as easily as their neighbor, until the media gets a hold of it, and even then I think you could go around to a lot of them and have someone tell them they weren’t being spied on, “just the strange guy down the block, honest” and they wouldn’t care or say go ahead, I never liked strange guy anyway. It is a self-absorbed mentality that was in affect in the 00’s, and some of it seems to be going away, but slowly.
Re NSA- no one really knows what is going on unless they work at the NSA, and even then who knows how much the worker bees know. Snowden can only be taken seriously to a point, because yes he provided some stolen files for the media to pick apart, but what sort of sample is it really? He says one thing, the NSA says one thing, and the media reports it as they see fit. As for the girl in the Post story about the girl and her wannabe jihadist boyfriend or whatever he is, she could use a healthy dose of common sense. The guy already ran off to the Middle East once to become a terrorist. It is possible he will try again. She was cleared. Doesn’t mean he was. Wouldn’t be surprised if his file was open and getting thicker.
Re Tea Party privacy- what I was getting at was that Tea Partiers would like to disallow everything they disagree with, similar to Hoover. Hoover, however, had the advantage that privacy still existed back then. Off hand comments weren’t spread around the web in seconds, there were no computers to get hacked so some distant unknown person could spread the computer’s contents around to whomever they please, etc. In today’s world, it only takes seconds for a story to get around the world, and usually the worse the story the faster it travels. And comments can’t be taken back, most of the time there is audio and/or video to testify to the stupidity of the person, and that doesn’t go away anymore once on the net. Or there is my favourite of tweeting something and then trying to delete the tweet after people are offended, but if it offends enough people to the point of it being deleted, you can bet several people have screen grabs of it and all the news agencies will have it. So you have Tea Partiers that would love to be able to say one thing to their hard core constituency, and another to the moderates to get their votes, but pretty close to impossible to do because everything winds up online and it is easier to call politicians on their bull – not that they still don’t try to song and dance out of it.
Re trolling- I don’t have an issue with people generally disliking and willing to have a discussion. It gets me when the comment is along the lines of ‘This is stupid and ya’ll <expletive expletive expletive > for liking it” and then the thread dissolves into nothing but name calling, telling people they should kill themselves, etc. See it anymore on anything with a comment section. It’s like 95% of the English speaking internet can’t civilly talk; just curse at each other.
Re language- It became more regulated as more people gained access to basic education, and even more so as the definition of basic education has expanded. Also, the more borrowed words a language has the harder it becomes to learn spelling and pronunciation rules. Regional accents also play hell. I’m better now, but still hear some words in certain British accents and it takes context to understand what the word was. Then amazed at the pronunciation difference.
Re Brit coms article- Haven’t heard of most of the ones the guy in the article talked about. Think the only show name I recognized was The Mighty Boosh, which screened over here on one channel that I consider hit and miss. Used to watch some anime series on it, but haven’t been able to get any of the few new ones they’ve screened as of late. (Know there is a big fuss about Attack on Titan, but couldn’t get into it at all.) Have heard about Steve Coogan, mainly as a guest on QI. Can’t say I cared much for him on the eps I’ve seen.
Re QI- While have been issues with getting the actual eps, there is behind-the-scenes thing and in that Alan talks about how he is intentionally the fall guy. Was one series early on where he figured out he was supposed to be the idiot and decided he was going to stop playing the fool. Can’t remember what was said exactly, but a producer pulled him to the side and pointed out that there was more bravery in trying an answer in getting it wrong than refusing to say anything unless you knew you were right. And that the show wouldn’t work without a foil to Fry’s schoolmaster persona.
Yeah, knew Fry was gay. Have noticed some eps where the innuendo can get really thick and sometimes it just seems to get stuck there. That doesn’t bother me. It does get me when they don’t give the answer to the question originally asked, though. They’ll go way off topic and never get the answer. One ep I watched Alan tried to get the topic back on course and directly asked Stephen for the answer and there was a bit of a brush off and back to the randomness that portion of the show had descended into.
There was some documentary I saw part of a while back that mentioned that anechoic chamber (also confused how you get a negative sound reading). Remember thinking that my ear ringing would have me going mental in a few minutes.
Re Torchwood- Are you talking about that Miracle Day series? Think that was supposed to be in the US, but think only Jack and Gwen(?) were back for it. One of the girls, anyway. Have only seen bits and pieces of the original series and couldn’t stay interested in Miracle Day. That screened here I think last year, maybe year before over here.
Have you seen any of the new Doctor Who with Capaldi? Was only going to watch his first ep, as just a so-so Who fan, but found him a refreshing difference from that last couple that going to give it a try this series.
Re World Cup- had most of the matches on in the background as was doing other stuff. Figured might as well get fill with this World Cup since the next ones probably won’t get any live games, and not much point watching when already know results. US got out of group this time round, which was nice. Personally don’t care for Jimmy Fallon – only thing of his I’ve ever cared for was his Robin Williams tribute – so don’t really know about any of his World Cup jokes. Get Fallon confused with the other newer big late night talk guy over here. Both Jimmys and look alike. Don’t care for either.
Re Groups of Death- I think there was some talk of this with our group, but not as much as one of the others. We had Germany in ours, which we expected to lose, but big fear came from Ghana, who had upset our chances for the past couple of Cups, apparently. Ghana was expected to be much tougher than what they were this year.
Was shocked how Spain got knocked out. Team just didn’t seem to play very well this year. I think Ghana was one of the African teams they put forward when talking about an African nation taking the cup, but that could be the announcers on an American network talking up hype about the opponent were facing. Thought I remembered talk about Nigeria being a good team by other commentators.
Never pay attention to betting odds or to rankings really. Learned that from supporting a college football (American) that never gets much attention, and then the people that do rankings and whatnot are always shocked when we have a good year. Over half the time I can judge what our season is going to be like better than the so-called pros.
Re new ABC car show- the guy that traveled back in time on LOM was called Sam Tyler, played by John Simm. Gene Hunt was the DCI, played by Philip Glennister.
Re US car show- by network do you mean a free station that anyone with a TV gets? If so those channels cover some of the stock car racing, and an Indy race or two. On a public broadcast station I’ve come across a show, MotorWeek, that reviews cars. The guy that does the voice over work is a cross between a voice from old classroom lesson videos that put everyone to sleep and a car salesman According to IMDB it’s been on since 1987. Get into cable channels and there are some other odd-and-end car shows. Worst thing I’ve noticed about any of the car shows is they tend not to talk about how well the car is expected to stay together and how much you’ll have to spend on maintence.
Re Kinne- didn’t see the café or the Guess Who racism skit. Tried typing it in the search and got some American guy talking about the game and then a bunch of clips showing various video game vids. Did like the *beep* NEVER said during the Olympics” “REAL Excuses”, and “MOVIE TRAILER – Scariest Relationships”. Some of his stand up was funny. “Aliens in Australia” was pretty good, too. There was a guy in some of the skits that I think tracked down to be Elliot Loney, who looks really familiar, but can’t place him.
MS Office wc: 3087
re Firefox “improvements”, yeah, that applies to a lot of sites and apps as well. I did hear that the Chrome browser, I think, stopped supporting extensions, which stopped people’s security software protecting them because those used extensions prior to Gooball making it so that only extensions sourced from their Store would be allowed to work (for security reasons). Some people had to redownload their security software or extensions via the Gruble Store to get that ability back...but in the meantime their software wasn’t doing what they wanted it to do...checking the security of the sites they visited etc. I did notice that one of my tablet apps no longer seemed to have all those invasive permissions anymore...so I updated it. Taking it on trust that it truly won’t seek all that personal data. Hmm. Also hoping that the ‘improvements’ don’t screw up the experience, like you often read in the comments sections for apps. Hardly been using my apps for ages though. I’ve got the factory version of You Lube because the ‘updates’ just made it worse...and I think it wants too much invasive info now too. Sucks.
re Nielsen ratings, I’ve wondered about the Australian system. Sometimes you see one programme beat another by 30,000 odd people. Made me wonder whether that might just be the difference between one person with an OzTam meter tuning in or out to a certain programme. Apparently Australia has the biggest sample of meters homes anywhere in the world...think I heard a figure of 30,000...but I could be wrong…
...okay, trying to fact check this, I get the figure of 3,500 homes...still apparently the world’s highest sample, according to that talk back radio show (from memory). Here’s a site I found with the figure:
http://www.oztam.com.au/AboutOzTAMRatings.aspx
When OzTam took over the diary system by another company, their initial results showed that the #1 network was losing viewers. Lo...that network kicked up a stink and had the methodology rejigged...so they remained #1! Listening to a talk back segment on on tv, some people mentioned that OzTam removed or didn’t install their meters if the people watched a lot of ABC TV, the non-commercial network. Ratings are basically for the benefit of the commercial networks, so, presumably, they’re mainly interested in measuring the ratings of the commercial networks, not ABC and SBS...both are government funded. Did hear somewhere, maybe from an American ‘expert’ or something that network tv seems done and dusted...it’s adapt or die for them from now on. Commercial tv really bugs me and I hardly watch it...and maybe even choose not to watch new stuff because shows get stuffed around...e.g. never watched Modern Family. That talk back show had some callers or the guest say that the Australian episode sucked...guessing it’s like what the Brits did here in the 1970s...i.e. US shows doing stuff the Brits did decades ago...cliches etc. These are probably not the worst examples:
Monty Python
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNBy1D1Y0h4
The Goodies - Rolf Harris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfHZ3wyqjE8
I’ve mentioned Rolf here before...he became caught up in that British child sexual abuse scandal recently...doing time. If I ever get around to buying a Rolf greatest hits cd I’ll probably feel guilty! Michael Jackson at least never got convicted anything...less stigma, perhaps, buying his stuff.
re Face Off - sounds like that show is a bit like whatever Australian cooking show reinvented (?) the genre by being co-operative rather than being catty. Is Face Off an English show? I think I saw a promo on ABC 2 for an English make-up show recently.
re bacteria...Catalyst covered some of the same ground on ABC TV and also gave new info re what kind of diet is best for these buggers...if you’re interested (2 x30 minute eps...video and transcript below):
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4067184.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4070977.htm
Vinegar was one surprising beneficial item on the menu...forget what the other one was...fruit? Grain? Dunno.
re Yakult...I’m taking its marketing at face value. Doesn’t exactly taste yogurty...has a hint of citrus taste, maybe but I don’t see it in ingredients list. Watery texture too. I don’t mind it...comes in small quantities. Japanese product. There is a store brand alternative too, which I’m also taking...don’t know if that results in a brawl in my stomach between the bacteria of both products!
Bought the recent issue of New Scientist (30/08/2014) for their story re bacteria post death. Some bacteria go ape feeding on oxygen rich parts of the body whilst some only thrive when that is gone. Hmm...I wonder if there is an ethics on this kind of stuff...i.e. is it ‘bad’ to get cremated, killing all these bugs (in a ‘cycle’/’web’ of life kind of way)? Maybe there’s some sort of cosmic aspect to their work? Yadda yadda. That issue also has a story on dietary supplements. I could have sworn they mentioned probiotics but I don’t see it (found it…[ah, no...good thing I revisited this...still, I’ll leave my irrelevance in] heading for that “fish oils” - p 36 - obscured under my dog eared page...which I wanted to remind me where the section was!). Since Catalyst - I think - did a story mentioning that fish oil is good for you, I bought some in bulk from the chemist...one with loads of (too large!) capsules with 2000mg of...whatever it is I’m buying it for (Omega 3)! The magazine does recommend fish oils as being good for you...whereas some of the other supplements aren’t proven to be effective or do nothing etc. Magnesium gets mentioned as being potentially harmful.
re Dr. Oz never endorsing anything...I wonder if that’s true...in the sense of there being some kind of commercial arrangement to feature the product or something of that sort. As for the med student suing one of the good doctors...I’m not sure it would have been a monetary issue...but not revisited that article...just saying that because I don’t think the student was alleging that he personally suffered due to advice from one of the doctors. He was doing it as a public service...or something. There was a story on Media Watch recently about how channel 9’s “A current affair” did a ‘story’ on a supermarket here…promod as an ‘expose’ – sort of – but really just a free ad for them…apparently to encourage them to spend more money on ads for the network.
I was wondering where you heard of that caffeine You Tube after watching but you say. Thought it might have been one of your PSA sources or something. Early on in the video I was wondering if drinking coffee is liable to make you feel more tired due to it replacing the other...thingy...that binds to your receptors. So, didn’t quite follow that as much as I’d like to. I think an Australian pentathlete was disqualified from the Olympics for having too much caffeine in their system...there may have been some sort of controversy about that, re whether it was fair or not. Don’t remember the details now.
Back to spiders on drugs...I probably archived something like this picture:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/files/2013/07/1243988608214.jp g
Not sure if that’s exactly the same as I’ve archived...the place where I archived it has “improved” its interface...can you guess where I’m going with this? Then again, maybe I archived it in a more easily discoverable place there...but I’m happy to just go with what I linked to above...that sort of thing. Not sure if my original pic had a more worse web from LSD...maybe even caffeine produced the worst web? I reckon someone should do a graphic of what builders’ work looks like under the influence…”Here’s a gazebo built by someone on crack cocaine...some of the finishing obviously leaves a lot to be desired…”.
Went to my other site and looked at photos of webs...thought that maybe I found the source I used, because I didn’t remember “chloral hydrate” being mentioned, above...but it was. Anyway, the following link has a hyperlink to do with the spider’s mental state if you’re interested!
http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm
...wow, FM! > check out the comment re spider on crack!!
re Starbucks’ coffee etc...places like those seem to have crazy, kiddie coffee confections...they look more like a Willy Wonka confection than anything else! And I find them waaaaay too sugary. Think I mentioned Gloria Jean’s here...I thought that they were US based. We also have Hudson Coffee...which kind of sounds like a US firm. Hardly drink at these places...I’m partial to affogato...which probably makes me a hypocrite! Speaking of sweet drinks, since I got a big fridge I started buying some of those powder drinks you have with milk. As a kid I’d drink chocolate and strawberry Quik and one or two other brands...forget what one is called. Also drank Milo on occasion. You get those brands there? That strawberry blonde on The Roast did a bit on Milo...i.e. the experience of inhaling powder...not sure, but maybe he was referring to eating it straight from the can! I’ve been getting into Aktavite now...I like it...sort of marketed like Milo on the pack…”sports” drink...but it’s just chocolate, pretty much...I think! Back to Milo...I remember on a high school camp one of the mums asked me if I wanted hot or cold Milo...I said “Hot or cold” (as in thinking aloud). Went for hot. Scalded my tongue. The trivial things we remember! As for American drinks...cherry cola is popular there, right? It’s coming here now, as are a lot of US products. Not sure whether I’ve mentioned this before, but lemon Coke is the most disgusting softdrink I’ve ever had. Did hear an English news satirist in the US say the same thing for Mountain Dew Code Red, I think. Sounds so bad I’m curious! Used to love Coke and raspberry at the sports club my old man would drink beer at. Wonder why that nice combo never got officially made.
re homemade cleaning products...isn’t it just basically baking soda and lemon juice in some sort of ratio? I mean, for ANYTHING? Want to clean your lemon juice container? Use baking soda! Want to clean your baking soda container? Use lemon juice! Want to give your lemon juice some extra “zing”? Add baking soda! Women who discuss these topics seem to pop up on ABC talk radio segments a lot. Maybe I should take notes! I did wipe my new stove down with a cleaner...but got some browning streaks on it as a result. Remembered seeing ads for “CLR” on tv, so bought that to try and fix this...not used it yet. I think the letters stand for “Calcium Lime Rust”. Hopefully the brown on my stove is one of those!
re spying: “”can we do it to person x as long as we don’t do it to you”, and I fully believe most people, or Americans at least, would say yes”. Again, that’s not how it’s working (...I’m not sure whether you are agreeing with me on this or debating!). It’s EVERYBODY. I think a US body called EFF is active against this...they’re saying that it treats everybody as a criminal. They do have browser extensions, I believe, to offer better privacy. Have also heard that such extensions make users less anonymous...in the sense of not many people have those extensions! Kind of like with TOR, I think...apparently invented by the US spooks but they wanted it used widely, so other countries’ spy agencies couldn’t just know that US spies were communicating when they used it. Ironically, I think TOR now makes its user more prone to spying by US spooks...they’re supposed to be criminals etc. Hmm.
re: ““just the strange guy down the block, honest” and they wouldn’t care or say go ahead, I never liked strange guy anyway. It is a self-absorbed mentality”. This reminds me of a Tom Waits song I discovered and quite like, in an arty way:
Tom Waits - What’s he building?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMqxNPsfN50
Listening to it now on Poo Tube...sounds Tom Waits is running your national security programme! Oh, your comment also reminds me of this interesting interview I heard last night:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/the-united- states-of-salesmen/5727890
Specifically, I think it was here where the guest was saying that many Americans spout the kind of Fox News diatribe against, e.g. universal health care...until they, or someone they know becomes ill and gains a new perspective on the issue. However, when they express that new perspective, their friends etc. become hostile towards them...like they’re indoctrinated or something.
As for the girl in the Post story about the girl and her wannabe jihadist boyfriend or whatever he is, she could use a healthy dose of common sense. The guy already ran off to the Middle East once to become a terrorist.
It’s like 95% of the English speaking internet can’t civilly talk; just curse at each other.
Last time I forgot to make that joke about QI “innuendo”...”in your endo, gedditt!!”. Probably no great loss! Wonder if Fry’s made it!
re negative decibel figures confusing...I did a DDG search on this and just randomly chose this thread on the topic...not sure if it’s relevant or right...I’ll just go with the flow!
http://homerecording.com/bbs/equipment-forums/rack/negative-db-numbers -58606/
re Torchwood Miracle Day...yeah, I think it’s that. Like I said, I wasn’t a big fan of the series although I watched...was thinking of giving the series a miss...maybe it’s on free to air tv for the first time now - I dunno - but I’m recording it. My PVR is at 90% capacity and I’ll have to get a new one because this one is tied in with me telephony provider...not mine, in other words. Will probably have to delete some SBS foreign movies on there and maybe some series...get them on DVD instead. Speaking of PVRs...have seen PVR out here now with either x4 tuners or x3 tuners and able to record x6 programmes at once. They sound good. Have heard that Japan has PVRs with x16 tuners! Saw an article for a TiVo with a 24 Tb HDD! Sheesh! I don’t think TiVo is a thing here any more...we used to have a commercial tv network version here...hobbled, really, to make it harder to avoid the ads. Hopefully whatever I buy will have the new FTA catchup service...I think every network will have content on the one app. Maybe it sort of makes a new PVR redundant, I dunno. Speaking of Japan...think they have an Olympics coming up, and that’s why they’re pushing into 8k and even 16k tv, I think...we don’t even have 4k content here!
re Capaldi as new Doctor...I’m recording it. Was thinking of watching it in the cinema but the times didn’t suit and it was only on for a very limited period. Gave the last cinema release movie a miss because I feel that the show is hit and miss and I didn’t want to pay for a miss. In hindsight, it would have been worth it, as I liked the film...gave it a good review here.
So, you’re watching Doctor Who now? Last I heard you say, I think, was that you had recorded that last cinema release movie. I suppose it doesn’t really matter where you jump into the series...you start where you start. At least - like me - you’re view of Capaldi isn’t coloured by his foul-mouthed turn in “The thick of it”!
My first Doctor was Jon Pertwee. Nostalgia makes him rate highly with me, but Tom Baker, his successor, blew me away...he redefined “cool”. Seeing some Doctor Who specials recently(ish) made me think that maybe Pertwee might stand up so well nowadays...did see clips of him being brusque and sexist! The ‘rebooted’ series does reference a lot of classic Who though. Saw a promo featuring Daleks...that seems pretty much a move to shore up the audience with the new Doctor...bringing back an old favourite villain. Personally I think that David Tennant was a very charismatic Doctor but let down by some poor scripts. I think watching the early Matt Smith eps I was actually thinking of ditching the show, because I literally covered my ears and eyes for some scenes...not a good sign! Clara is a good companion, but another cringe-worthy aspect of the show is the way that she was retrofitted into the entire Whoniverse timeline...really sucks. So, basically I just try and filter out all the bad things about the show! My fave Doctors would be Baker, Smith, Tennant and Pertwee. I probably forget how much the show slid in the latter Baker era...it became a chore to watch. Not sure if that coincided with certain writers departing. I used to own a lot of Who books and they were written by the tv series writers, I’m pretty sure.
re the Jimmys on tv in the US...Fallon seems amiable and some segments I’ve seen with him have been good, but I’m not a convert...I tend to see him only because I pad my recording of The Roast and it’s a 5 minute buffer at the start. There was an Australian comedian here, Steve Vizard, who used to have a tonight show...it was obviously influenced by Letterman. Vizard was convicted of corporate wrongdoing and barred from boards or something! ex lawyer or something...dunno.
You follow college football? In Australia, that would be a big “HUH?!”. E.g. people follow stuff like Australian rules football in the national league, AFL. There just isn’t that much interest in lower leagues, but, I suppose, the original state leagues are followed by people from their own states. We don’t really have a university sports scene comparable to the US...and maybe that’s a bad thing for our national sporting teams...dunno. I tend to play fantasy AFL but since I don’t watch the game (anymore) I’m pretty hopeless! Tend to always miss out in the play-off stages but take out or come close in the bottom half ‘championship’...won that this year in my league...of the remaining live sides including the main finals teams, I had the highest score in the last week...fwiw!
I used to commish NBA basketball leagues...I go into that in my review of US film “Moneyball” (start of my review). Ditched playing fantasy English Premier League soccer this year...not sure if was so invasive re privacy last year, but it was off-putting this year. You mainly go in tipping competitions for college footy? I tip too in AFL, but again, pretty rubbish. Back in the days when there were 8 games a round, I was a ⅝ kind of tipper...the top tippers were 6/8. Got more speculative this year..trying to snag one of the big weekly prizes. Failed. To be expected!
re new car show on ABC TV...I’d say it was hosted by Philip Glennister but I was saying that the stuff about the show seemed to have the wrong facts about the host...i.e. you’d think Philip was the time traveller. Didn’t watch that series but talk back callers and the host was angry because the ABC stopped screening it mid series and that’s not the kind of silly buggers you expect from the ABC. I think it’s a bit a of a mystery when they’ll resume the series.
re US car shows, I mean shows about cars as opposed to racing coverage, which has been covered for decades. As a kid I used to watch the iconic Bathurst 1000 race...gosh, that must have been an all day race, I think! Thinking of getting an XBone instead of a PS4...wanting to know if the new Forza game will have the Bathurst track, Mount Panorama and Australian muscle cars...new and old. Our car industry is dead now...well, dying at least. Mr. Speedos dared them to leave, and they did! Holden (GM) and Ford are closing up shop in the next year or so.
re Kinne...looked at Aliens in Australia sketch...got some laughs out of that...including the guy suspicious of his girlfriend having multiple orgasms with him!
P.S. re:
Re bacteria- haven’t heard the 90% poo statistic before, although there are some people I’ve met where it could easily be 100%!
Re TV audience tracking- The OzTam sounds just as bad as Nielsen over here. Earlier this year they announced they were going to add something like 6,200 homes to “select market areas.” This is supposedly a 50% increase in sampling size. So supposedly fewer than 20,000 people nationwide are an accurate representative of about 319 million people watch. Yeah, sure.
Can understand why the ABC and SBS numbers aren’t as important, though, is the OzTam numbers are used similarly as the Nielsen numbers. Nielsen is more for setting prices on ads than anything. The channel can say we have x number of viewers for this show, so the cost of an advert for this time is such, and for a government funded channel I guess you wouldn’t need that. Pretty much only option for tv over here is commercial channels, so not really any choice if a person wants to watch tv. Only other option is waiting for it to come out online/dvd or watch illegally online.
Re Face Off- to the best of my knowledge it’s American. Haven’t heard of any Brit equivalent.
Re bacteria- so the high-fiber diets are coming back in fad, and we should all be drinking some vinegar. And it seems like these researchers are pushing the “cave man” diet, though I think that might call for more meat than it sounds like these researchers are calling for. The thing with the Hadza people, though, I want to know what the average life-span is, birth/death rates, sickness, etc. While they may be eating the same foods, it would be interesting to know how much those foods have changed because of chemicals and whatnot in the environment now vs Stone Age.
I don’t think too many cosmic issues will arise from people being cremated instead of buried. Bodies have been cremated for millennia, so either we’ve screwed things up beyond all fixing by now or we’ll be okay.
Oh, good old Japanese. They always seems to come up with some of the weirdest things imaginable, and some of the more disturbing. At least there is an educational point behind this. Hope none of the kids go home and start thinking to examine/play with feces because of going to the exhibit, though. One of the points mentioned was that the museum was hoping to educate people that feces could be used for fertilizer. Who doesn’t know that that is what so much fertilizer is made of? And human feces isn’t always good to use for fertilization that has something to do with disease, but don’t fully remember what. Might be some of the bacteria that live in human feces.
Re supplements- Omega 3/fish oil is supposed to be really good for heart health from what I’ve heard. Don’t know what the dosing is supposed to be on it. Tried taking a glucosamine supplement for a bit because it is supposed to be good for joints and certain ones ached more while taking it. Now only thing I take is a multivitamin for eye health. Works better on eye allergies than the steroid that the eye doc had me on.
Re Dr. Oz endorsement- the times I’ve seen bits of his show he has never endorsed a certain product or had anything brand name on his show. It’s just been take more vitamin K to help with such and such. Eat a bunch of fiber for good bowel movements; drink some grape juice for this benefit.
Re drinks- We have Quik here (at least I’m assuming it’s the same drink. Ours has a brown rabbit as a mascot. Or at least it used to; he might have been axed if it was decided it shouldn’t be marketed to kids.) Don’t remember hearing of Milo. Cherry Coke I think is still around, like on store shelves but doesn’t get much marketing. Don’t remember Lemon Coke; we did have Lime Coke for a while, not sure if we still do. During the holiday season (approx. November thru early January) Cranberry Sierra Mist comes out. I think this year one of the other big soda companies brought a cranberry lemon-lime soda out, but I’ve been laid up since mid-October, so not sure.
Re CLR- we get ads for that over here. Did you have any luck with it on your stove?
Re spying- I am agreeing with you that there is a wide net of people being spied on. My debate comes as to how many people understand how wide the net is, and how easily they could be duped into not caring that it is going on. Like I said before, agency claims it’s only people in category W, and as long as an individual doesn’t think they could possibly be in category W, they won’t care that the spying is going on.
Re “What’s He Building In There”- properly creeped (and Word doesn’t recognize creeped? Sad.) out by that. Words kind of annoying, but the sepia video with unfocused images does the trick.
Re
As for the girl in the Post story about the girl and her wannabe jihadist boyfriend or whatever he is, she could use a healthy dose of common sense. The guy already ran off to the Middle East once to become a terrorist.
I was under the impression that OzTam (and it’s predecessor – Nielson? - had a greater sample size, at least as far as % of population goes. OzTam samples 3,500 homes, which is roughly 0.016% of 21,000,000. On your figures, the US has 6200 homes sampled of a population of 319,000,000, which gives 0.00194% of the total population (I really hope my maths is stacking up here! > edit in...no, it doesn’t...re the whole distinction between “home” and “individuals”! If what I’ve worked out is right as far as % goes, Australia has sampled a 100 times more people {homes!!} as far as % of total goes...but I could be getting it all wrong...time to shut-up!).
OzTam is no doubt used to set advertising rates over here too. Asides from Australia’s BBC equivalent ABC, we also have SBS...which I’m not sure if the UK has an equivalent of. Some years ago they introduced advertising. People complained. Started off as bookends but now there are ads within shows, just like the commercial networks...not so bad though...not as frequent nor as long. Government cuts to budgets now means – I think – that SBS is looking to run more ads. The ABC doesn’t technically run ads...but it runs a Hell of a lot of promos! Got really annoyed watching the first part of the Breaking Bad final series...would have been nice to wind-down with the end-credits but this ‘cheery’ woman gave some inane voice-over promos...really silly stuff, after a serious series. Hate that. No doubt the ABC audience would be a big, juicy apple for advertisers...I’m sure the conservative government seriously wishes they could privatise the ABC...the Murdoch papers here are vociferously attacking the ABC’s ‘flaws’ in their standards as well as advocating a reduced role or privatisation. I’d hate to see that.
Do your networks have catch-up services? What are they like? I mostly watch the ABC, a little SBS too. Their online viewing is pretty good. The commercials have been behind them...not sure if they run okay now...had trouble viewing them in the past on my PS3...either the networks’ service didn’t run or it only had ‘behind the scenes’ kind of content of popular shows...are merde I wouldn’t want to watch anyway.
“Cave man diet”! I have heard that phrase after I watched those docus. There was an article over here about an Australian rules football team – Melbourne FC, I think – taking up that diet with their new coach in charge. Quite a few Americans were mentioned as following this diet...Kobe Bryant for one, from memory. This might have been the article, if you are interested:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/melbourne-players-to-adopt-radic al-paleo-diet-in-2015-afl-season/story-fni5f91a-1227133470817?nk=69e8f 09163c8001ad3c2e6f4775b3f29
Also interesting to me about this diet was its impact on teeth...none. i.e. it’s our modern diet which have made dental problems so large. Not sure if I mentioned here previously about McDonald’s having sugar in their buns...I’m assuming that this is unusual though. Preservatives would also be a bigger part of our diets compared to millennia ago.
Re cremation and cosmic consequences...maybe sort of related...if it was common for everything to be burned, then that would break the cycle of life, I think...what would worms feed on? When the worms die out, what will the creatures that feed on worms feed on? And so it goes. I’m probably not the only person in the world who thinks that humans are quite unimportant in the grand scheme of things, i.e. if there were no humans left on Earth, the world would get on just fine without us! But if bees say – and these have been in the news of late – then maybe all life on Earth would die off? A lot of the ‘higher’ animals, at least, no doubt.
Re Japanese poo fetish (?)...as far as human manure goes...I believe it’s the e-coli bacteria which make it so harmful (or not...did I specifically mention the poo ‘transplants’ on “Life on us”?). Maybe it’s the same bacteria in dog poo which makes it bad for us too? Years ago there were stories about environmentally friendly toilets for humans...i.e. installed in your house and you can use the waste to fertilise the garden. They had some sort of ecology to make your poo harmless..maybe bacteria or some other sort of ecology? Saves on water and maybe toilet paper too...very old story though...don’t remember the details.
Glucosamine was meant to be good for your joints but made some of yours ache? Hmm! The fish/krill oil that I’ve been taking is meant to be good for your joints and eyes...and heart. Apparently you’re meant to take more if you want to treat arthritis. I’ve been buying in bulk...last one had 400 caps. Not sure I’ll stick with it though. You do see health stories about how things like multi-vitamins are useless unless you have a really poor diet...well, maybe not on the commercial networks, but on the ABC at least you’ll see stories like that. Commercial network ‘news’ stories and ‘current affairs’ stories have usually run with “miracle” pills...and the obligatory follow up story on how these are scams!
Re Quik etc., of course a lot of these products would be from multi-national companies and so came out from the US or UK etc. If Australia did make an original product then it probably got sold to one...and not sold overseas. I’d tell you that Vegemite is American! Back to drinks...I think Aktivite (if I recall correctly the name) markets itself as Australian in origin). We do get stories here about the difference between Australian made and owned...not every product with an Australian flag on it or stating that it’s Australian made is actually Australian (much). With Lemon Coke...fwiw, if the US didn’t get that, you dodged a bullet! Maybe Australians were your guinea pigs?
CLR...not tried it on stove yet. I’m a procrastinator! That might be for the best...maybe it would be a disaster and someone would say “Who the HELL puts CLR on a stove FFS?”!
Spying – we can agree that “people in category W” = “everyone who uses the internet”? I’m not okay with even the ‘spying’ that goes on with businesses...e.g. Grooble. Their business is selling ads. So, like your spy agencies, they spy on you online in order to sell more ads to you. Internet users need a bill of rights...but, horse...stable door...
“What’s he building in there”...the words actually work for me. About paronoia etc. Try You Tubing The Velvet Underground’s “Murder mystery”. It’s probably for the best that the lyrics wash over me...guessing it wouldn’t be good to know what they’re actually chattering about so sensually!
Thought I’d add a link to that song...not sure whether you can view it or not (I can’t!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaKDga-HZzQ
Re Snowden story in WP...just skimmed it, very long. The boyfriend of that woman was like the NSA...wanting to know all her details including login/password for Facebook! My problem with this universal spying is that you just know the spies are going to access the mundane...details on celebrities, their ex-girlfriend’s habits, blah, blah, blah. It’s happened here with the police etc. From my point of view, no warrant, no spying. And we need to spy on the spies...i.e. we know exactly who accessed at what data and when. That would discourage curiosity based spying....as distinction between the public interest and interest to the public.
I do recall – vaguely – some story about the Germans spying on the US. There was a story here about how Australia spied on the East Timorese in order to get the best deal for themselves (i.e. us/me) re oil resources. Not in my name. You can imagine such tricks would not be new to the US. And it is in the best position of anyone in the world to do shytte like that. So, I don’t believe that terrorism is really the point of the US’ universal surveillance. It’s a bonus for them.
Re Twitter posts and privacy...I don’t think you’re right on this because often you see stories in the news here about nasty things people in the public have said...even with private accounts. E.g. a follower of someone’s private account will copy that Tweet (not sure of the details there, whether via ReTweeting or some sort of screen capture method) and make it public...even if that person has deleted that post (I think).
Re Hacked Apple photos...if you upload to ‘the cloud’ you’re basically handing over your stuff to a corporation...which may or may not spy on your content or may or may not have adequate security. Have read of services like OwnCloud (I think it’s called). As the name implies, it’s your own personal ‘cloud’ service. Sure, no doubt it could still get hacked, but I think you can be confident that at least the service provider isn’t spying on your content...e.g. for the purposes of advertising etc.
Non-civil internet...that YT you watched...was that from SBS’ Insight programme here in Australia? I thought that we discussed that many replies ago? With our replies being spaced so far apart in time it is hard keeping track of a topic when referenced abstractly! If it’s something I saw, maybe I didn’t pick up on one guest sliding from it being an Anglo problem to a Protestant one and not being savvy to her own country being mostly Protestant!
Re redundant English letters...you mention “k” being silent in some words and hence being the best candidate to ditch. I would think that when k was pronounced in those words that...it sounded like “c”! As in the “k” sounded like the “c” in “cone” for a word like “knight”. Not sure I agree with you k acting on the o to make it long is “know”. Maybe it’s just one of those random pronunciations? As in pronunciation rules in English aren’t formalised since we borrow so many foreign words and have done so for millennia. That’s why English is regarded as a difficult language to learn as opposed to...a language I’d cite here if I knew my stuff! Spanish? Maybe Italian has a more phonetic approach to pronunciation, as in you say words like see them. Cf. English “cow” vs “know”...the “o” in that, I mean.
With ‘cuiet’ or ‘cueen’ for quiet/queen...nah! How about “cwyet” and “cween”? For the latter, to Italianise that, “cwin”. Don’t agree with you re dropping “j”. J is for jam. G is for gem. So, I’d just basically the right letter for the appropriate sound, if that makes sense.
Have spent a little (literally!) time thinking about this. As in, contemplated having the IPA as our alphabet. That has more ‘letters’ than our alphabet, I think...well, it does...but I must meant the ones we use in OUR language, not the whole set. Still probably has more ‘letters’ than our alphabet, even when considering only the ones we use in our language. The problem I see in using the IPA is this: you couldn’t tell (easily) whether a ‘new’ word was for a different concept. E.g. you know that “I say tomato you say tomato” song? Dialects complicate understanding with an IPA alphabet. With our alphabet we know that the word remains the same, which gives rise to “You’re saying it wrong!”. With IPA as our alphabet we’d ALWAYS say the word the right way, but no doubt have a lot of redundancy in our word base...which might be useful on the off chance you travel a lot!
Having looked up “j” on Wiki, it reminded me to go back to your point about the “ch” sound...that sound and the “j” (as in “jam”) is represented differently in the IPA. From memory, ts cognate for “ch” and dz cognate for “j”. Back to “j”...your intuition about Swedish origin is a nice try...apparently Germanic origin and Swedish has roots in that language. But that post dates its use in Roman numerals, e.g. xviij instead of xviii. But I’m just scanning the Wiki page...maybe you can pull me up on any error I’ve made.
Re American accents...you did mention Southern accent and New York accents. Off the top of my head I could add Valley Girl accent. I’m now familiar with the the New England accent...JFK from there, right? There’s a cartoon over here which I can tell has New England characters...with luck I just opened an old newspaper to check the name of the cartoon...”Non sequitir” by Wiley...and it has the New England speakah! So, can now recognise Mayor Quimby as a New Englandah! Australia has 3 recognised accents: 1) broad (as in Paul Hogan/Steve Irwin type) 2) (standard?) 3) (educated?). I’m really showing my stuff here aren’t I?! Ah, I see that the terms I’m looking for appear I the “Sociocultural” sub-entry on Wiki for Australian English. Those terms are broad/general/cultivated. Even by “cultivated” standards, former Australian broadcaster Ranald McDonald was off the charts...last I heard he was teaching journalism at MIT where you are. He was “hyper cultivated”! Laughably so...doubt if too many pronounced some words like he did, e.g. the long “a” for a word like “bag”!
With the Micallef interviews, I wouldn’t say he is trying to get a wind up...I’m pretty sure the actree he was interviewing knew what was happening...they’d either rehearsed it or she knew his schtick. Not sure how familiar Micallef would be with the Alan Partridge character from the UK. Never really saw much of Partridge at all but I’d like to some day. He seems another character based on the concept of the inept/socially awkward tv interviewer. Then again, an Australian character like Norman Gunston pre-dates Partridge...not sure how far further back that type of character goes. Have seen some Gunston on You Tube. Amused by his interview with Mick Jagger...Gunston was under the impression that he had sold more records than The Rolling Stones! Back to Micallef, you do realise that the feminist author he interviewed was an actress? i.e. that entire series was fake interviews. Like I said, I didn’t have luck trying to find a particular interview which amused me...he interviews a woman whose husband died...skydiving accident...or something. She’s in a new relationship. She says it’s what her husband would have wanted. Micallef says something along the lines that if her husband were alive he’d want her to be having an affair with someone else? I like his sense of humour in any case...absurdist.
re kid humour...did I say how the American ideal of ‘cute’ makes me want to punch the little shyttes? Did see a promo for a Outnumbered DVD...get the impression that I missed some series...as in I’m not sure I’ve seen the episodes where the kids are now teenagers. Might have to check those unseen eps, if they exist. Australia had that kind of a sit-com in “Hey dad!’, which was remade by some other countries. The ‘dad’ is now serving gaol time for reals over sexual abuse of children, including cast members. These kinds of stories are common now. Bill Cosby in the US too.
Re Stephen Fry...did you hear he got married to his boyfriend recently?
Re super k tv etc. We had networks over here briefly offer 3D tv over the new digital channels. No more. I think most networks even have most of their channels only at 720p. ABC TV uses it’s HD channel for News 24! My point? At least as far as Australia goes, having 4k tv, let alone 8k or 16k all seems pretty pointless. Maybe you could spend $100k on a 16k tv? Yuh...and watch the one movie which is available at that res! Or be happy to play your free promo display disc which came with it!
What do you mean by “Some HD channels might have a high enough rate”, re 8k and more? Content? Thought you might have beant bandwidth or something. Apparently Australia could more HD channels by just switching...something something. MPEG standard? i.e. at the moment bandwidth is limited so networks are probably forced to choose between multiple channels each or less channels but including one HD channel. Not sure if our networks could be arsed having more HD channels even if the bandwidth was there.
Probably read too much of your Capaldi comments...they’re spoilers! But I did see stuff on that Master thing anyway in magazines or whatevs. With Clara, I find her likeable but I just ignore all that rewriting of the history of the show that she does. Can’t say that for River Song. I’m really hoping that they do a Dallas there! i.e. “It was all a dream!” Problem(s) solved!
Have you see “Blink” yet? Not sure I mentioned to you about whether or not it matters to view Who from the start. The show was before my time and I started with Pertwee’s Doctor. The ABC used to constantly repeat episodes. After not doing repeating shows for a while, they’re getting complaints to a tv guide insert now over QI...on every week day, I think! Back to Capaldi...you mention him not being boyfriend material now to his companions...one inconsistency to me is that during...Ecclestone? Tennant?...one of those Doctor’s times, he did make a comment to the affect that having sex with humans would be like bestiality to him...something LIKE that in any case. But in the failed reboot before the tv reboot (via a tv movie), I think the Doctor had his first ever kiss with a companion. Can’t say I’m a fan of this...then again, I’d choose that over him marrying River! Maybe I’d go for him marrying Romana...another Time Lord. So, I’m a bit old school there! Tom Baker’s Doctor had the Romani. Baker actually married Mk. II, I think! She’s now married to the evolutionary biologist/provocateur Richard Dawkins. Roman Mk. II was also cute/likeable.
Maybe it’s a good thing I stuck with Smith’s Doctor. His first ep was truly cringe-worthy for me but I’d say he beats Tennant now as the 2nd best Doctor. It’s the creators behind the show which shoulder the blame for me not liking the show as much as I could...they’re so keen to leave their own imprint on the reboot...as with that whole Clara rewriting history thing.
Surprised that college sport more popular than the pro version. How early on are you talking about as far as that being the case? Not really the same...one day cricket started off as a bit of a novelty sport but now the traditional form of the game, test cricket, is not drawing in the crowds. When the World Series Cricket revolution began in Australia, the teams wore coloured uniforms. “Pyjama cricket” it was called by some, apparently. Likened to baseball to (meant in a bad way). Now there’s T20...an even shorter version of the short form of the game! THAT really seems more like baseball...but with a million ‘home runs’!
Re Tipping competitions...I just mean tipping the winners for a round of football. Draws are unlikely, but an option. I was just saying that I was a 5/8 kind of tipper but the top tippers were around the 6/8 mark. Now there’s more teams in the league. I have played fantasy sports, including US based ones. Spreadsheets are essential for that, I think. Early on I didn’t have one. I mention this aspect in my review here of that baseball movie with Brad Pitt...forget what it’s called...no I don’t...Moneyball!
Re US car shows, I suppose I was most interested in when these kinds of shows first aired. Was wondering if Australia pioneered them. Ours go back to the mid 70s (ish). You still watch Top Gear? It’s dead to me now that it’s no longer on SBS and is on a real commercial network now. SBS has ads and the show ran about an hour. On commercial it runs to about 90 minutes (ish). Can’t say when it last aired on commercial tv or if it’s still even on anymore over here. Probably is...I’m just ignorant of most commercial tv.
Re Smart phones...you’re probably not young enough (like 7 y.o.!) to be of much use to your parents as far as suggesting good phones go!
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
Edits in:
re gut bacteria, this story recently made the news here...it’s related:
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4169642.htm
Also, on the topic of chocolates, which we were talking about (right? Re what brands/products are available in certain countries etc.), I came across this story recently:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/27/hersheys-lawsuit-ban-i mported-cadbury-from-us
Libre Office word count: 3,384
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
In one of your PMs you asked about the US not always getting certain technology. The searches I did didn’t really net any good info, but I have my own theories. For one, several brands are entrenched in the US. HTC is one of the newer brands to get traction, although I don’t think they’ve put much hurt on the well-known, established brands. Of the entrenched brands, some have had more success in switching over, like LG did decent for flip phones, and pretty sure they’re doing okay on smart phones; brands like Motorola that were very strong as flip phones have almost disappeared in the smart phone market. Sony is similar and in the US you don’t really see Sony phones, and overall Sony hasn’t been as strong as a brand in several years – they started dying when music began going more digital, across all platforms really (phones, music players, dvd/blu-ray, TV although their cheaper brand, Vizio, you see more of). One of the phones mentioned in the PMs, and if I remember right what originally brought up the question, was a Sony, and the simple answer is that I don’t think it would pay for Sony to put forth the campaign to get their phone competing with iPhone, Samsung, and Nokia (who was purchased by Microsoft mid-2014 so we’ll see how that goes).
Finally, the US has a reputation of being a well off country, and in comparison to a large chunk of the world, yes. However, there are other places that have higher concentrations of rich people willing to pay for the latest tech when it comes out, or to have it before anyone else. Singapore has been top of the list for a few years now; Abu Dhabi, I believe, tends to be up there. In the US, there are a couple pockets of richer people, but these other places have a much higher concentration, and the rich are usually richer. If you have brand loyalty in the US you can charge absurd amounts for the phone and still sell (see Apple iPhone), but anyone else would have to start quality models for less and hope you can convert the die-hards to your brand eventually.
In the past week here, Blackberry announced they are putting out models that are touch-screen without keyboards. Over here the selling point for Blackberry since they came out was having an actual keyboard on the phone, which, my understanding was, that their loyal customers were loyal because of that keyboard. Will be interesting to see their sales are affected by this move.
Re Nielson- Couldn’t find anything that gave a clear answer of how many homes are in the sample at a given time. The following article is where I found the numbers I used.
http://tvline.com/2014/05/29/tv-ratings-nielsen-to-increase-sample-size/
Since they’re calling 200 a “significant increase”, there can’t be that many to start with, at least not in comparison to the number of people in the US.
Re catch-up services- I’m taking this to mean a way to view the show, other than a replay on TV, if a person has missed the original TV airing. There are many channels that have some form of catch-up. The basic, free channels all have shows available on-line, to varying degrees. Most of them are free, though sometimes they only have the latest couple of eps versus the whole series. There is one channel, CBS, that has introduced some kind of premium pay section to their website. Think there is a larger backlog of eps available per show, and maybe fewer commercials. Some of the low level cable channels are using a similar method with their original shows. All of these website viewings have commercials imbedded that you can’t skip, so I guess the cable channels figure that this way they get some money out of it instead of people torrenting the show or posting it on youtube. Plus then they don’t have to get someone to complain to Youtube to get the shows taken off YT.
The premium cable channels tend to have different agreements with the different cable providers. Generally, if you pay to get that channel on your tv, you can access the channel’s website and watch the shows. We have internet and cable with the same company, and with these kind of channels there seems to be a tag on our internet access point that tells the website if we have access. I don’t know if a person could buy access directly from the channels, but overall I don’t think you can. HBO (their big hits right now are Game of Thrones, Girls, and Boardwalk Empire; also responsible for The Sopranos, True Detective, True Blood, The Wire, Sex and the City, Six Feet Under) is working toward an online subscription for their shows that cuts out the cable companies. Supposedly launching sometime this year, and aimed mostly at “cord-cutters”, the people who are not subscribing to any cable and getting all their tv viewing done through the internet.
Through cable companies, there is also a service generally known as On Demand. This is a feature that allows for catch up viewing of some shows. It depends on which cable provider you have as to what shows and channels are available since the deal is made between the provider and the channels. With ours I’ve noticed that there is more options with the free channels, and shows the network is trying to push seems to have more available, and very hit or miss with what is available from the other channels. In this format there are commercials, and you can’t fast forward through them like you can if you record the show. I can only imagine, therefore, that a person would only use this option if someone else in the household messed up a scheduled recording or deleted a recording.
I don’t know what sort of options are available over here for Xbox or PS users, but I know something exists.
Re cave-man diet- didn’t realize dairy wasn’t allowed. Do remember hearing recently, though can’t remember where, that dairy isn’t good for humans beyond the infant stage, and I think they’re mainly talking breast milk with that. My understanding of the diet has been to keep the food as simple as possible. One of the quotes they have in that article talks about not eating processed food and sugar, which goes with a lot of diets, and most people that start cutting down on the highly processed stuff, they tend to feel better. The sugar bit always kills me though, since there is quite a bit of sugar in fruits, even in their natural form. Also, think there is a tendency of the more processed the food, the lower quality of animal product goes into it.
Re McD sugar hamburger buns- most bread has sugar to a certain degree. It deals with yeast, mainly.
Re bees dying and world ending- sort of consensus that earth is currently in a mass extinction, thanks to humans. If the bees went (along with many other bugs that people are dependent on for doing a lot of fertilization), for starters farmers would lose several million annually (think that is just the US estimate). Also read that a good portion of pest control is still done via natural predators. Found a so-so article on it where they did an experiment in Kenya on a patch of land that the roped off from all the big animals, and they found rodents became a big issue, and subsequently the diseases they carry with them.
Article if interested:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/july/sixth-mass-extinction-072414.html
Huh, looked up to see if it was legal to bury a body without a coffin, and found the Green burial movement. Did you know you could make a coffin out of cardboard? Wouldn’t think it would be anything you could actually move the body in, but makes sense from the standpoint of degradability. Also some mentions of the type of clothing to wear so that too breaks down, but why not just forgo the clothing? If you have an open casket funeral service, have a heavy, dark sheet covering what you want covered, which could be then taken out afterwards and you buried nude. Then all your clothes can go to a charity place or second hand store. What doesn’t make sense to me, is why so many people insist on their best clothes to be buried in, usually something that hasn’t been worn much and is still in good/great condition. You’re dead. After the service no one is going to see you again (barring any need to be dug up if some kind of foul play is expected or a grave robber – yes, still happens today. Was a news story last night about a couple graves being dug up in the US). Why not get buried in your grubbies? Then all the good stuff could still be of use. And from that morbid pondering, let’s talk about sh*t.
Re fecal transplant- did you see the story about the woman who had this done and gained a bunch of weight? Apparently they’ve seen the same side effect in animal testing when feces is taken from an obese animal and put in healthy weight one.
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-obese-after-fecal-transplant-overweight-donor
re environment friendly toilet- I think you’re talking about a composting toilet. You add something like sawdust or peat dirt to the area the waste is collected, and that somehow makes it mostly safe to use as fertilizer, I guess. And the little I read it doesn’t seem like your supposed to mix the urine and feces, something about it not composting right if you do, and extra precautions have to be taken if you want to use it as compost.
Re supplements- there was a major issue that came to light over here within the last month that several stores were selling store brand bottles labeled as certain supplements when there was nothing but filler in them. Makes me wonder how much of it is placebo effect.
Re “Murder Mystery”- couldn’t make it all the way through. Once the vocal started it strongly reminded me of ‘Detachable Penis’ by King Missile. “Murder Mystery” came first, so maybe the style was inspiration or something. Here it is if you wanna listen. Lyrics are clean, though will probably get strange looks if played too loud in public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDss8V2OME4
re Twitter- Copying a tweet or taking a screen grab is one thing, but I think it is possible to delete the original tweet – just if the copy or screen grab has gone viral it doesn’t really matter. It’s why in news stories where a person is getting in trouble about a tweet in the story somewhere it will say something to the affect of ‘so-and-so has since deleted the offensive tweet, but not before thousands of people made screen grabs, as pictured above, and spread it around the internet.’ And by copying I mean the same way you’d copy text from any other electronic document and paste it, credit it, and tweet it from your account.
Retweeting is a button option from twitter where it shows up as the original poster. Like if the BBC News twitter originally posts a tweet, and then User23 hits the retweet button for that tweet, on User23’s feed that retweet will have the BBC News twitter avatar, the BBC name and time that the BBC News twitter posted it. At the top of that tweet in smaller, grey letters it says User23 retweeted. To me this suggests that when the original tweet is deleted it disappears from any feed that has retweeted it, as well. I retweet a lot of stuff, but it’s not controversial stuff people would want to delete, so no personal experience with it.
Re Cloud services- will never, ever trust a cloud service, even if it’s supposed to be a something like the OwnCloud you mentioned. It also sounds like another back door hackers could use to get into your computer, i.e. get into the cloud, attach something to a file and just follow it back when the person accesses it. I use Adobe Photoshop, and a couple years ago they switched to a subscription service instead of buying the software on cd, and they encourage you to keep all your files in their cloud. If that gets hacked, what is stopping someone from claiming your work as their own, or if you can’t access the internet where you’re at you can’t work on your stuff. The two things I hate most in technology right now: streaming services (free and pay) and clouds.
Re non-civil internet- yeah that was the SBS show you linked a while back. I think I caught the Angol vs Protestant thing was reading the transcript. Had to double check that Sweden was mostly Protestant after she said that, but a good rule of thumb is that most of northern Europe is predominately protestant while southern Europe is Catholic.
Re redundant English letters- Reading your post made realize the biggest problem with trying to get rid of redundant letters and switching to IPA: which pronunciation becomes the ‘right’ pronunciation to dictate which letters you get rid of? Back to my ‘know’ example. For me, and most Americans, the ‘k’ is silent, and the ‘o’ is pronounced the same way the ‘o’ in ‘cone’ is (which now that I focus on it, it probably is the short ‘o’). Accents dictate so much of pronunciation, and for a language like English spoken in at least 9 countries as an official or unofficial official language, plus all the different accents in each country, and each has a slight difference in dialect as well, e.g. Brits saying ‘he’s in hospital’ whereas Americans ‘he’s in the hospital’. Or the issue of ‘a’ at the end of words sounding, to my American ears, like ‘er’. That particular issue might be related to a double ‘zz’ being before the ‘a’, like in Shazza. Another word is ma’am. Most of the time when hear a Brit say it, I swear they’re saying ‘mum’. In American, the first ‘a’ is pronounced like the ‘a’ in at, and the second part of the word is pronounced same as ‘am’.
you mention “k” being silent in some words and hence being the best candidate to ditch. I would think that when k was pronounced in those words that...it sounded like “c”! As in the “k” sounded like the “c” in “cone” for a word like “knight”.
Re car shows- the serious car review show, MotorWeek, that I mentioned before, started in 1981. The original incarnation of Top Gear UK, when it was a serious review show aired in the UK starting in 1977.
Re Top Gear- I watched Top Gear UK to the end. At the start of this series, they did the initial airing simultaneously in something like 50 countries, including Australia, so it aired in the morning over there, but don’t know which station. It aired here the day after the initial world broadcast in the evening. Obviously done so it wouldn’t air on American television in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday. On BBC America it aired with commercials. The first broadcast was unedited, save for beeps on words not allowed on American telly and any penises drawn were blurred out, and ran 90 minutes. All subsequent airings are edited down to 60 minutes with commercials.
Re smart phones- my problem is that I don’t think it pays to keep up on the latest tech unless it has some direct influence on my life since it changes so quickly anyway. I keep up with the basics, and anything else I figure I’ll learn when it directly applies to me.
Re peanut allergy study- good news for the kids then if the results hold. Wonder if they could treat adults with peanut allergies with that? Have we talked about allergy increases, specifically before? Can’t remember. One story I read awhile back said that it was tied in somehow to the mom eating peanut butter, or maybe it was just peanuts, while pregnant. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but oh well.
Re Hershey v Cadbury lawsuit- can’t say I blame the Brits for being mad. Think if I owned the company that carries the British Cadbury name, I would just change the name of the products and continue to import. Don’t know how Hershey could argue with that, or take it to court. I understand where Hershey can get away with suing about the name – arguing that it is confusing to consumers looking for Hershey Cadbury – but change the name on the imported bars, keep recipe the same, and don’t know how Hershey could legally have any say.
Even as an American, I have to say I’ve grown out of Hershey chocolate. Didn’t mind it when I was a kid, but when I eat it anymore it tastes tinny. I can eat a Kit Kat without being bothered, but otherwise don’t much care for it anymore.
Word Count: 3937
Interesting that you mention Nokia as one reason for Sony not to waste money competing against
its like. From memory, Nokia became a basket case after being the leader or one of the leaders of
mobile phone manufacturing. Can’t say that I remember why it took it dive...I do remember reading
something on this years ago but it didn’t stick...perhaps they were slow to include new telcom tech
or something? Can’t remember if they did clamshell phones or not...perhaps if they didn’t, that was
another reason that they declined...they weren’t fashionable or something. Not sure if I remember
reading something about Microsoft perhaps making a deal buying Nokia...even if they did get it cheap. Perhaps it’s odd that Australia’s mobile phone market is a bit different to the US as far as Sony goes. Their high end phone still gets mentioned in tech mags as having market leading features...dustproof, waterproof, etc. You mentioned companies wanting to compete needing to bring out quality products at a reduced price. You could probably count those companies I PMd
you about.
Since you mentioned Apple and you use it, I thought I’d mention a story that was on Four Corners recently...I recorded it but haven’t watched it yet. It was a British piece...the Four Corners link below does have some links to Apple’s response to the story etc:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/03/02/4187424.htm
Here’s the source...not sure if you can view, but there were also newspaper articles based on this report if you’re interested and don’t want to spend 40 minutes watching it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04vs348
re Blackberry...I heard that they’re like Nokia...but more so. i.e. just becoming less and less of a thing anymore.
Re Nielson...I might try and tie together what we have on this...my post here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787490/board/thread/128493812?p=24&d=234466806#234466806
...had a link at the top to the Australia situation:
http://www.oztam.com.au/AboutOzTAMRatings.aspx
Your last reply had a link to the US situation, here:
http://tvline.com/2014/05/29/tv-ratings-nielsen-to-increase-sample-size/
So, going on the little information that your link has, it looks like that New York and Los Angeles have about 1,300 homes hooked up, which is about 2,600 just for those two markets. Do you think that the list of other US markets in that article was exhaustive? If yes, that’s 15 markets in total (I’m assuming that Washington and D.C. are the same, although they have a comma between them in the article. .Going on that final paragraph, it looks like the list of 15 markets is exhaustive (based on my mental calculations of the before/after tally of total numbers hooked up in the US), which means that “currently” (?) some 3,100 homes are hooked up to the service.
Going on that, it looks like Australia has a much greater sample size than the US...3,500 homes in the biggest cities and less than half that amount for pay tv subscribers...presumably giving a grand total of about 4,900+ homes. And guessing, Australia is roughly 1/20 the population of the US. So, even when the US doubles the amount of homes surveyed, it won’t be vastly greater than what Australia has now...and still a big different re per capita surveying.
Re catch-up services, over here it refers to the network’s online service which allows you to view shows that you’ve missed on FTA or, in some cases, to get an advanced screening...I think the ABC did the latter for Doctor Who, but I could be wrong. Can’t speak much of the commercial networks catch-up services...I think I tried in the past to view one channel’s and there were only “extras” style content (i.e. not the actual show...or at least not shows that I was actually interested in viewing). I would have tried them ages ago...any time last year or before...via my PS3. Actually, did that for one network via PC and via PS3 another network either didn’t work on that platform anymore...or something. I’d click on a programme and nothing would happen...for any show. Maybe it’s improved since then, I don’t know...there was advertising for some new improved service which might have involved all the networks...or something. I dunno. Basically I’m most likely to view ABC iView and then, hardly ever, SBS’ Online...the latter doesn’t seem to always screen shows that I might not want to catch up on. It would be great if for these services you could use whatever remote you had and it worked just like it would on your DVR. However, it seems to me that the picture isn’t as good as broadcast quality and using the PS3’s controller and their interface, it’s really fiddly and buffery trying to go back a few seconds to try and catch something that you missed.
I’m actually hoping for “something better”. I’ve got a 3 tuner PVR but since I mostly record stuff off the ABC and I’m now finding that they run shows I want to record back to back and they are now (I had written “ow” and no red underline by Libre here!) stuffing you around with their starting times like the commercial networks, that some shows aren’t being recorded...which means if I’m lucky enough to notice that in time, I can make an effort to catch up on iView...which I have to do now...my PVR didn’t catch one of the “Agony of...” episodes.
There was publicity here recently because Netflix has arrived here. Apparently Australians are one of the worst, if not the worst (per capita) illegal downloaders of programmes. There was a good bit on a new news satire show called The Weekly With Charlie Pickering (which took Shaun Micallef’s similar format time slot) where he pointed out that the situation was analagous to that of a supermarket...there are customers at the checkout, wanting to pay for product but the store charges more or won’t let them buy the product (not sure if he said the first part though) so the customer basically does a ram raid at the back of the store and takes stuff for free. There were also articles about how Australians are paying more for Netflix here and getting less content than the US (due to some programmes being exclusive to our cable service here). So, the advice might be to stick to what Australians have been doing for a while with Netflix...faking being located in America, paying less money for the service (although that would be undone with having to buy VPN services) and getting all the content that Americans get. Our cable service (not mine...I mean that Australia just has the one!) Foxtel, has massively reduced its pricing for their service, no doubt as a result of Netflix coming in, as well as the players that entered the market before them...two streaming companies, I think...one a partnership between a newspaper and a tv station and the other a partnership between Foxtel and a tv station, I think. Quikflix (sp?) has also been around a while...PSN offered it as an app...and I now see that Netflix is an option on PSN too. Another aspect to Netflix coming to Australia was that the government announced that it (and foreign companies like it) would now incur a GST (goods and services tax) for their service. That seems fair to me because Australian companies have to add GST to their product/service but Netflix could sell their service without including the GST.
...Edit in: I got an email that my BBC Global iView service was no ceasing near the end of the June...it mentioned an iTunes account too. I didn’t even know I was a subscriber (or whatever!) to this! Must have tried using it once or something. Never became a “thing” with me though.
Back to my “something better” wish...I could do without any FTA TV at all...the ABC is giving me the irrits with their scheduling which means that I can record programmes and I either miss the start of the show or the end of it...it’s annoying to have to keep a recording of another show that you’ve watched just to be able to see the start or finish of another show you’ve recorded. I’m Jack of it! Be great if there was a streaming service that let you watch what you want, when you want with a remote giving you a true PVR experience and no buffering cueing/reviewing. Ideally Australian content which I wanted to watch would still get made. Back to Foxtel for a second...I do remember seeing Letters To The Editor in The Green Guide complaining about Foxtel initially being ad free but now running ads. That would suck. ABC’s iView is now also running promos...just like its FTA counterpart! I remember watching Breaking Bad on ABC2...there’d be a dramatic end to the show, some serious music would start and...you got a female voice just doing some stupid, jokey promo for another show coming up or whatever. FTFAJ!
Re diet, you mention breast milk...just brining this up because I saw Mad Max: Fury Road yesterday (14/05) and that...featured this! Re sugar...yeah, fruit juice (even 100% fruit juice) has really high levels of sugar in it. Made a habit in recent years of really rinsing my mouth out with water after a meal...I did think that merely chewing sugar-free gum would make my teeth “safe” from decay after my diet...not enough. Still chew the gum...but after rinsing my mouth out with water and drinking some. I was watching the last episode of Catalyst for the time being on my PVR and it had a story about a murder mystery here in Australia...an Aboriginal was found with a lethal wound. Just mentioning this because of...his teeth...turns out the man was centuries old and...his teeth were still in great nick! It was supposed that he was killed by a settler here, but it turns out that he was killed about 700 years ago...and his last meal was consumed about 200 years later (tell me about it!). That made a mystery of why his lethal wound suggested he was killed by a metal instrument of some sort...which wouldn’t h ave existed back them, presumably...some scientists wonder if a wooden weapon might have caused similar damage...lack of data to support this though...data about Roman gladiators made them think that the lethal wound was caused by a metal blade in the first place.
Re bees...I remember this topic being brought up in a recentish episode of Doctor Who...with a Whovian spin on it, of course! I read a few pars of your mass extinction article link. Related, if you are interested:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4201865.htm
That mentions ocean acidification and the fate of krill...there’s currently an experiment being conducted on this topic which the show will probably update viewers on. If that murder mystery interested you, here’s the link for that:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4211835.htm
...edit in...back to bees...saw this story today when reading the paper from a few days ago:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/a-white-house-plan-to-save-struggling-us-bees-20150520-gh5h53.html
That article is slightly different to the one that I read in The Age, which was sourced via the L.A. Times. Only read The Age one fully though..which misses some content from the one in SMH.
Since you mentioned high level of rodents, I do remember that every few years here you see stories in the news of plagues of mice on farms...a farmer will lift up a sheet of corrugated iron and...hundreds of mice, piled three deep just scurry about...perhaps due to farming monoculture...and weather, of course.
Re burial rites...maybe I do remember seeing a story on cardboard coffins, not sure. However, I’m pretty sure that being buried with clothes and valuables that you can never use when you are dead isn’t a modern phenomenon...perhaps it goes back tens of thousands of years? I’m sure that the Pharaohs had a saying: “Yes, you CAN take it with you!” [edit in a few minutes later: gosh...I think I remember hearing that this included live servants!]. It is odd though, having luxuriously lined coffins...the dead get uncomfortable, do they? How is that ‘luxurious” lining going to look/feel after you’ve been laying in it for a few months? Have you seen the movie “Psycho”? Remember Norman’s mother’s mattress? Like that...but worse! Personally, maybe I could forego that sort of fancy clobber and coffin when I cease to be...the Nazis were on the other end of the scale though...corpses were just another resource for personal enrichment or the war effort...so, perhaps I’m hoping for a kind of middle ground between these two world views? Since you mentioned grave robbers (I assume), thought I’d look up that famous example of this...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders
...hmm, I was vague on the details of that case...misremembered it, but it still did come up under a search for “famous grave robbers”...but they just...took it to the next level!
Re fecal transplant link of yours...I did wonder whether the donor was a good choice before reading your story...the donor was obese, so, my questioned answered? Only read about the first paragraph or so. Not sure if there is a necessary link between that outcome likely given that the donor was obese or if there are measures that can be taken to mitigate the likelihood of that outcome...which will need to be discovered.
If you’re right about me thinking of a composting toilet, I wasn’t aware of the kosher rule for that...i.e. can’t mix urine and faeces. I do seem to recall that the compost was inert...or whatever the right word for that is. It’s probably just a human “thing” to be grossed out about using human faeces as fertiliser but having no problems putting your hand in chicken poo and spreading it around your garden!
Re your story about store brand supplements being nothing but filler...in that case, they’re not exactly the sample to be judging if supplements are only a placebo effect! Presumably those stores have been shut down or fined? That tv show I’ve linked to before, The Checkout, did a story in the current series on this...how there are companies whose sole job it is to fluff up your product...i.e. the company with the product wants to market it a certain way and the “research” company does the “research” to do that...not necessarily lying, but just doing bad science, really...i.e. their conclusions don’t really follow on from their “science”. That story was the first in the series (9th April), via this link...not sure if it’s viewable to you...maybe You Tube also has the episode or clip?
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/thecheckout/episodes/
re “Murder mystery” reminding you of “Detachable penis”...hmm. It’s not a connection that I would have ever made. I do have “Detachable penis” on one of my Triple J “Hottest 100” annual compilations...apparently the world’s largest poll, done by an ABC radio station here pitched at da yoof. Not really a Triple J kind of listener, but years ago I did buy a few of their annual, double CD compilations...years after they were first released. Hoped I’d discover some gems on there, and some did have them...e.g. The Bloodhound Gang’s hoot of a song “Fire water burn”...don’t play that with your parents around! What put you off listening to the entire Murder Mystery song? I find it quite an amiable song, really...but that’s probably because I don’t focus on the lyrics, which I suspect might be a bit off-putting!
Re OwnCloud...I don’t have this myself, but I’m assuming that you’re misunderstanding its nature...as I understand it (not much at all, really!) it’s just having your own data stored on your own device and which functions in a similar way to those cloud servers. In other words, the storage device is yours (perhaps it’s a NAS device or something? Apple equivalent would be...I forget...Time Machine or something like that?) as is the data that you put on it. With the cloud, the storage belongs to another company so your data is potentially available to them. I did read of a New Zealander called King Dot Com, I think, who got into trouble with the US over...pirating? setting up some sort of cloud service which is meant to be actually very good as far as your privacy goes...wish I could easily find the PC magazine that article was in, but from memory, the data was double encrypted or whatever but if you lost your password, you lost access to your data forever. That’s meant to be a good thing, because the encryption means that not even Dot Com’s company has access to your data. Meant to have a humungous amount of storage available to users for their use. Might want to follow that one up myself...e.g. if I wanted to store You Tube music videos there or something.
Re hackers hackers hacking your cloud account and attaching something to a file of yours in there...is that likely? I’m not sure I follow what your concern is with that...I’m not sure that it’s a thing either, but I’m not that kind of user in any case. I do see your point about authorship though...but if your file is otherwise untouched, time stamps should sort that out, right? Forget where I came across the following info, but I did come across one story about how Hollywood scripts, say, are easily stolen...in the pitch! i.e. a guy pitches an idea for a movie and the studio rejects it. Later on, surprise, surprise, the studio makes a movie with a very similar premise. Not a lawyer, but some sort of notion of “originality” would have to come into play there for the studio not to be found stealing someone’s idea.
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
You mention hating streaming services...both free and pay...why? You also mention hating clouds...the non-literal kind. Do you count Google as “cloud”? I’m trying to avoid them...using search engines that don’t track you etc. Would have steered clear of Google if I knew they’d turn evil!
Re redundant letters in English etc. and how you decide which ones are to go (with regard to variant forms of English)...I’m not sure that too much would change...we have variation now: colour/color; programme/program etc. re “He’s in hospital” vs “He’s in the hospital”...I can’t say that I know which form I use or have used in the past...not had much cause to use this phrase! One Americanism which does bug me is “Write me”. One says “Write to me”. The US variant seems umgrammatical to me! It’s odd that the US hospital phrase, above, has the definite article in it but not the letter one! Re Shazza....I would have thought that that was an Australianism for “Sharon”...but maybe we got it from England? It’s certainly identified here as an Australian thing to do...Shazza, Gazza, Bazza etc. Then again, I think that a famous English soccer player was known as “Gazza”...so, probably England origin. But, back to your point on this...I think that the phrase used for what you mention is “rhotic” or something...not looked it up...just pronouncing the “r” at the end of words. In the UK it’s identified with the rustic, but in the US it’s the prestige form of pronunciation, I think. “Shazza” doesn’t have an “r” in it, but maybe since its form is similar to words that do but still sound the same, then maybe that explains why you hear it as “Shazzer”? E.g. I’d say “farma” for “farmer”. Actually, I’d say it as “fama”. Guessing that that would be pretty standard for the English too.
Re you hearing “ma’am” as “mum” when spoken by the English. Not me. The vowels are too distinct for me. Maybe it’s a case of narrowing the vowel sound to two, when in fact you’re missing option “C”? For me, the vowel in “mum” is the same one as in “fun”. The one in the English “ma’am” is the long “a”, as in “farm”. The one in the American “ma’am” is the same as in “fan”. Neither version is one that strikes me as naturally a part of Australian English...very rare to use, unless you’re the local aristocracy (cough, cough!) meeting royalty! The American variant does strike me as odd though...slightly forced. Maybe class can justify the variants though...i.e. use the English variant for speaking to one’s betters and the US variant for speaking to an adult female of the opposite sex. I would guess that if I ever heard a US “ma’am” spoken here – which is so rare I’m not even sure that I’ve heard it!), it would be due to someone who’s just picked it up from American tv!
Sort of related...my English perhaps is more along the English lines as far as vowels...BUT...they really do guild the lily sometimes...which bugs me. E.g. I said that “ma’am” had the same vowel as in “farm”...if you want to over-egg the pronunciation, make it sound like a doubled-up “a” in “farm”. Would have mentioned the one time Australian broadcaster Ranald McDonald...he strikes me as so over-egging RP that he makes the most over-egging English person sound rustic by comparison! E.g. I remember him saying “plastic bag” once...but I wasn’t sure what he said initially...because he used the vowel found in “farm” for both words, I think! I don’t think that such a variant is even a thing in England! Ranald was working in MIT the last I heard...many, many years ago.
Back to you hearing English “ma’am” as “mum”...I have s similar experience sometimes too...e.g. I might hear something on Australian tv as an American might hear it...but I’ll rewind and listening carefully and recognise it as sounding properly “Australian”. Would that test work for you? Maybe sometimes we hear sounds as shimmering when they’re not? i.e. they don’t seem like concrete sounds, so we can attribute a form to them (wrongly) but on closer inspection we just find out that we misheard it. There’s probably a psychological explanation here...and I’m not a psychologist!
Re my point about words like “knight” having the “c” sound in it...just trying to say that at one time the spelling was phonetic, so you pronounced the “c” sound...and the “gh” sound. The spelling is no longer phonetic though...and Australian English is the same as American English as far as the pronunciation of that word goes.
Sort of related...and related to vowel sounds too...apparently during the Middle-Ages or something there was a big influx of foreign words and sounds into England, which made the pronunciation of words often no longer phonetic. I forget what the term for that was...”the great vowel migration”? Dunno...something of that sort. Here’s the interesting thing...that process continues in New Zealand! To my ears, they have some truly bizarre pronunciations of words (which is why it bugs me when Americans confuse our accent with theirs! Then again, I find it hard to tell the difference between a Canadian accent and an American one...I usually pick wrong when I ask a North American if they are from Canada/America!). The standard Kiwi example of this is “fish and chips” being rendered as “fush and chups”. Can’t remember if this is for New Zealand or Australian English, but I do recall a story about an American soldier, I think, visiting the antipodes to catch up with a war buddy, a kid answers the door and the American wants to know if so and so is here, the kid says “He’s dead now”. Then, the man the American was asking for shows up...alive. Can you guess what happened here? I’ll give you five seconds of thinking music...the kid had actually said “Here’s dad now”! Funny, no? Not sure if the kid actually said it the way that the American (?) had heard it...or maybe this is another example of those “shimmering” sounds I mentioned previously.
Edit in – I did note ages prior to starting this reply the case of Irish names, like “Siobahn”...which is pronounced “Chevorn” (non-rhotic “r” though). Am reminded of this occasionally because an ABC news journalist is called that. Also, watching a Capaldi Doctor Who ep last night – the one with the trees – there was a girl who was written as “Maeve” in the captions but on the end credits came up as “Maebh”. Hmm...not sure if there is a variant which has “Siobhan”...which might explain “bh” being pronounced as “v”. Hmm...don’t the Irish also have a problem with the “th” sound in “this” and “that” etc.? Makes it odd that they would choose to spell with letters that they can’t pronounce!
Re your Spanish speaking professor...hmm...trying to remember which similar example saw people from the “home” country look down on the colonial variant of their language...from memory, they thought that variant “rustic” or something. Maybe French Canadian? Dunno. Chinese has a reputation as being a very hard language to learn...it’s written form, at least. Think I heard that it’s not as bad as it’s made out though, as the characters have certain “core” forms or something, so you can intuit meaning from characters that you’re not familiar with...it’s not like they’re all distinct and therefore harder to learn.
You mention your uni book with IPA symbols. Just grabbed my Macquarie Dictionary “The national dictionary”. Their IPA for Australian English has 15 vowels (including foreign vowels); 8 diphthongs (vowels with two vowels joined together, like I think that you might have had in mind. E.g in Macquarie: “eI” > as in “bay”); 24 consonants (but segmented by category). That’s a total of 47 symbols, I think...less than the US...if we’re comparing like with like...which I’m not sure that we are. Maybe Australian English also has triphthongs...not sure if you’d add that to our list of 47 though...not in the Macquarie list in any case.
I’ve got a sheet with the IPA alphabet...not sure how to count the symbols though...it has 58 consonant symbols plus 15 non-pulmonic consonants in separate section; 28 vowel sounds (if I’m reading the chart right, otherwise 27). That’s a total of 100...so far...then, under “other symbols” there are 10 (if I’m counting right...perhaps 9...one symbol is equivalent to a diphthong but for consonants). A grand total of 110 at best. Reasonably sure that the other categories on the chart don’t concern alphabets proper...those categories are “Suprasegmentals”/”Tones and word accents contour”/”Diacritics”. That’s all of them!
Re Valley girl...did I say it was an “accent”? I don’t remember. “dialect” seems to cover it, but maybe there is an element of accent to it...as, you associate it with teenage girls...but I suppose teenage boys could do the boy version of it? Boston v New England accent...I’m pretty sure I’ve heard JFK do the “ah” sound...which would be in keeping with UK/Australian English, e.g. instead of “farmer”, saying “farmah”. Presumably Massachusetts and New England are near each other? That would explain any similarities in accent.
Re Doctor Who spoilers...actually, what you mentioned last time popped up in the very first episode of Capaldi’s series proper. Still, I actually like being surprised by tv/cinema and it seems a lot of tv/movie reviews nowadays just replace having to watch the content with a description of the major revelations in it. i.e. you don’t have to watch the thing if you’ve read the review. Kind of like a review of “The crying game” saying [spoiler alert!]: “It’s about a chick...with a dick...and the man who falls in love with her”. Actually, I don’t even agree with the thinking that if something is old enough, it’s fair game for such revelations...there’s always someone new to it. So, it would be out of order for a Star Wars review to say [spoiler alert!]: “About a farm boy who want to fight an evil warlord...who he doesn’t know is his father”. I even get annoyed in reviews which do what you did...reveal something which is shown right at the start of the movie. It didn’t turn out to be so bad in any case, your reveal...it just seemed like it, maybe. Think I did read somewhere, though, that people who come across spoilers enjoy the film more when they see it. M’kay. I must be old fashioned or something!
Back to Doctor Who...at the time of writing this particular part of my reply (30/05/2015...nearly done, I think!) I’ve got about 2 episodes of the series to go, not including the Christmas episode, which is now a “thing” for the series. Might leave that for later though. At the moment I’m trying to whittle away the recordings on my PVR from a telco who I will be out of contract with in a couple of months or so. Mainly want to get rid of the series on that...got some Masters Of Sex and The Walking Dead there. My telco PVR doesn’t belong to me, I don’t think, and ideally I’d like to take my business elsewhere. Maybe there’s some overlap with my own PVR content and that on my telco’s...which might allow me to whittle away some more recordings from my telco’s PVR.
Was surprised to find the Robin Hood ep of the show the most entertaining one, up to that point...and maybe up to where I’m at now. Didn’t expect much from it, but it was fun. The new Who stuff with relationships is still making me cringe, re Clara and her boyfriend. Overall, the series seems to be improving with the new guy in charge...less of the cringe-inducing stuff than before. Not that I’d know, but maybe it’s more old-school sci-fi as well...having ambitious ideas...not that the more recent Doctors haven’t had this, but it just seems more frequent now.
With that ep where Clara visits the Doctor as a young boy...I actually thought that the episode as a whole was quite good...but then I remembered it still had the same kind of schtick I hated from the previous head guy! i.e. how Clara retrofits herself into the Doctor’s timeline. The new guy in charge just made it less jarring, which is good I suppose...but I just wish they didn’t do that kind of stuff...having seen a promo for the 2nd last episode, there seems to be scope for explaining all this retrofitting...gosh...I hope it was all a dream! i.e. all that stuff with Donna and Clara, blah, blah, blah. One of the actresses in the series...her name seems familiar...on the UK Life On Mars? Not the main female character in that, was it? If yes, what does that say? We’ve been doing this thread for so long that the stars of the show whose board we are on are forgotten to me now!
Re your question about there are supposed to be only 12 incarnations per Time Lord...I think last year I did come across info to that effect. For a newie you’re quite quite geeky on this! When I looked up this stuff, I think the Who wiki or whatever mentioned that this “law” or whatever you want to call it, was introduced in the Tom Baker era. Which is ironic...because I usually bag the guys in control of the reboot for doing this kind of stuff! It seems that the Doctor who was part of a failed reboot of the series – post the Classic eps and years before the current reboot – is now a canonical part of the lineage...as seen in The Day Of The Doctor, or whatever it was called. Personally, I don’t think I would have counted him. I did notice (more than once, actually) that newsagents here have comic books based on the various Doctors...there’s one for Capaldi, Tennant and Smith, I think...probably all three...I wonder how many series there are for each Doctor...any Classic era Doctors? In any case, you seem more well-versed in Who lore than me at the moment! I find a lot of the lore in the new Who disposable...or stuff that I want to forget...e.g. the whole Donna stuff etc...they were actually fused...Doctor/Donna. Whatevah! Rose was exposed to The Rift and became...something or other. Whatevah!
Re college sports...I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I found it interesting that netball, a sport that Australia is a super-power in, developed because the instructions for basketball were misinterpreted! Also, I do remember being surprised that a case could be argued that the US played the cricket test match (and not Australia and England, as has been accepted for well over a century).
Re car shows on tv, the following quote beats the debut dates of those tv shows that you mentioned coming out of the UK. Can’t say how significant the comment on “Marque” is as I’m not exactly sure how that differs from a regular show about cars:
From 1973, Peter Wherrett presented the ABC TV program series Torque and later a historical series called Marque, which is the only television program on that topic to be produced for free-to-air television
Edit in: I noticed a scrap of paper in my wallet with some notes I had on the Doctor Who lineage...which, unfortunately, I've misplaced now! But, I do remember noting something about the 10th Doctor. Presumably my note stemmed from the "The day of the Doctor" movie. Reconstructing that train of thought by looking through Wikipedia entries, part of what I was getting at would involve this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Doctor and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_actors_who_have_played_the_Doctor
The first link states that that Doctor came before the Doctors of the rebooted series. However, note that that Doctor is not featured i the second link re the chronology of the character! Maybe that's the kind of thing that my note was getting at. Like I said before, I'd be happy for the unsuccessful reboot actor to be deleted from the chronology, meaning that there'd be one more Doctor to come after Capaldi.
Libre word count: 6,468 (sorry!)
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
I feel like I should be keeping a tally of how many times I’ve had to restart Firefox or the computer or Word due to some update or the other, or the computer has randomly restarted while it was asleep. It makes me nostalgic for the days when programs were actually done when they were released instead of the programmers half-@$$ing it because either they are just rushing to get it out or they know they can just release updates as they feel like it. I know that meant there were sometimes some odd glitches, but it was rare they were so bad that the program didn’t function as it should, and when something like that did manage to slip through it was either called back (only remember that happening once with some computer program), or a disc would be sent out (again only remember that once or twice). It wasn’t this bs of ‘Oh, we just discovered that the new version we released just yesterday had problem X. Here’s an update.’ Four days later: ‘Op, another glitch. This one allows people to remotely access your computer and steal all your personal info before deleting your entire hard drive. Sorry! Here’s an update.’ One week later: ‘Update!’ etc, etc.
Even the effing video games have updates like this. I have a 3DS and have had to download updates for those, some of which the system wouldn’t let me load the game without downloading. If I’m not mistaken the tabletop consuls to this, too. I wonder, though, how much the public is to blame for the shoddy work. If everyone didn’t have to have everything NOW, NOW, NOW it might not be as bad. Anyway, now that is out of my system.
Clark and Dawes – I think a lot of what they are doing you have to be familiar with what is going on in Australia when the segment aired. Found it entertaining in a broad sense of political satire, but I think it would be better if I knew more exactly what prompted each one.
Re Nokia- I don’t remember Nokia having clamshell/flip phones. The ones I remember were just those one piece straight body types, which at the time I know businesses over here like better because certain models of the flip phones would snap in half if people weren’t careful enough with them, and lets face it, there are always going to be a certain number of employees that are going to be constantly breaking them, as I’m sure they’re breaking the smart phones now.
I do remember, though, when I was replacing my first phone because the screen stopped working, I wanted and did replace it with another flip phone. The first one I tried, and luckily they let me return it the next day, felt really chintzy, like it was going to come apart if I flicked it open with my thumb too fast. Took it back and got a Tundra like I should have done in the first place. A good tough phone that was resistant to water and dust and could have run over with a large truck a time or two if I felt so inclined. The body even has some rubber built on so that it can take a decent fall and still work. If somebody could figure out how to make a smart phone like that they’d have a golden product. Granted they’d piss off all the case makers, and there probably wouldn’t be a huge market for it, but I think military and police would love it if you gave them a deal.
Re Apple’s Broken Promises- It is going to be interesting to see which companies respond to these undercover operations that show what working conditions are really like in the mines and factories that make all the tech items the western countries and the middle class and above in some of the other countries have come to think of as necessities. There was one American company, I think it was Apple but I’m not 100% sure, that had to install nets on some of its buildings because people were committing suicide too often by throwing themselves off of the building’s upper floors. If I remember right it was mostly office staff that saw the deadlines and quotas they had to meet as too stressful.
Hm, seems it was a company called Foxconn, which provided services for several names, including Sony, Motorola, and Nintendo, as well as Apple. Not real specific on who was committing suicide, just that there were several, although the number of suicides apparently isn’t high for China. Guess it was just because the company serves several big names in tech that it got attention, or maybe it was because they did something about it by installing the nets. If they hadn’t installed the nets I bet no one outside China would really be the wiser.
Re Nielsen numbers- I can’t find any exact numbers for how many homes the damn boxes go into. A couple articles I found say that Nielsen adjusts the numbers every year based on the number of households they estimate to have televisions. It isn’t overly clear on how they arrive at the estimate of households with tvs. It just says “U.S. Census Bureau data and auxiliary sources, such as state governments” which doesn’t really explain how they know someone has a tv. I’m guessing the satellite and cable companies will happily share how many customers they have, but that doesn’t explain how they know for sure about houses watching only the regular broadcast.
For 2015-2016, Nielsen says there are 116.4 million houses with a TV, which equates to 296.8 million people age 2 and older. Total US pop. according to US Census Bureau is 318.9 (in 2014) so Nielsen figures only about 22 million people don’t have a tv. Ha! Found an article from October 2014 that says at the time there were 20,000 households, which comes out to about 50,000 people. If I’m doing my math right (296.8 million/50,000=0.000168*100=represented %) it comes out to 0.0168%. If that number is right (and I will be the first to shout from the roofs that math is my weakest area by many, many miles) the numbers are even worse than I thought they were. Not even half a percent of the TV viewing population is making the decisions as to what everyone gets to see. Add to that the poor job at tracking online viewing numbers. No wonder so many people are getting irritated when their favourites are being taken off the air.
I really think the best way to go is finding a way to use the satellite and cable boxes to count views. There has to be a way to measure regular broadcast as well, since it all went digital in the US around 5 years ago. Not even sampling .5% of the population, but saying you can accurately predict what all the TV households in the US are watching is nothing less than a flat out lie.
Re promos over credits- It has become such a standard over here on every station (and even online) except for the premium cable channels that when I see a show on DVD and either the show’s theme song or whatever song it was using at the end of the programme, it still seems really weird. Some stations have figured it out where it isn’t completely annoying because the preview for next week’s ep is shown while the credits are going; if it was a cliffhanger ep the promo tone tends to match the tone of the ep that just ended, and if not cliffhanger the tone still fits overall with the show. I do miss the days of ending songs, though. Just helped bring a better conclusion to the show instead of straight into commercials.
I know we’ve mentioned it on/off here before, but the things that really annoy me are the pop-up ads that are up some place on screen while the show is on. Most of them have movement anymore to help draw your eye to them, and it seems like there are more of them all the time. The only helpful pop-up I’ve found so far is a lot of the show over here putting #showname somewhere on screen to encourage people to tweet about the show while it is on air, and the hashtag will disappear a few seconds before the show goes to commercial.
Re mystery Aboriginal dead guy- so was he buried in something that preserved various parts of him to date 200 years differently? Or do the people studying him just not have a clue? Any really sharp rock around Australia that could have caused the wound that they thought was caused by metal? Obsidian is supposedly obscenely sharp for a whack/stab or two. Maybe something else was put on top of him or died on top of his corpse a couple hundred years later and that is the meal that they’re dating. Just can’t think of any land animal off the top of my head that decays that wouldn’t leave some kind of trace behind.
Just saw the story link. It sounds like the dating may have been messed up, which has been known to happen. It doesn’t help that there are no studies about the wounds that the Aboriginal wooden weapons make. And, just because Europeans weren’t in Australia, I wonder if the Chinese made it down there. I’m not very familiar with Chinese history, but I know that there was a theory floating around that they made it to America a few hundred years prior to Columbus. If that is true then they could obviously make it to Australia.
Re Antarctic acidity experiment- what happens if one of those tubes they’re using to get all these acidic chemicals to the seabed breaks? They also don’t seem to be taking evolution into account in the long term. The scientists are talking about a collapse by 2300. For an animal that lives only about 5 years, quite a bit of evolution can happen in 300 years. I’m not saying that there isn’t a problem, because I think there is enough evidence that suggests we are seeing a die off, whether anything can be done to change or slow it down remains to be seen, but for an animal like the krill, if it can survive changing conditions to make it 300 years, I don’t think the one in 300 years is going to be identical to the one seen today.
Re bees- nice to see they’re doing something to try to stem the bee problem, and trying to save some of the wild butterflies, etc. Heard on the radio the other day that because farmers pay beekeepers a good price to bring in their hives to pollinate fields, people are going in and stealing the hives. Like a beekeeper will bring a hive in during the afternoon and leave it in a field with the intention of it being there a couple days, and one-night thieves go in and take the whole hive.
Re burial- maybe there is a green movement in burying same as everything else. About 15 years ago when my grandfather died I know he was buried in a nice suite and had some decent jewelry on. And I wouldn’t think there would still be modern grave robbers if people weren’t being buried with some valuables. I could see some crabby relative that didn’t like anyone in the family or have any friends and decided to be buried with their nicer things.
And you’re right about pharaohs being buried with live servants.
Re companies using all filler in vitamins- I don’t think anything came from it. Can’t find anything with a quick search anyway. All the stories I’m finding are from the initial reporting. I’m guessing any issues were settled behind closed doors.
Re “Murder Mystery”- it just reminded me too much of “Detachable Penis”. I can’t tell if it is the chorus or the verses that the guy is doing the fast talking on, but every time it came on I just started hearing “Detachable Penis”. Also not a fan of the synthesizer or steel guitar or whatever it is that is the main background instrument when the girl is singing. Find it a bit of a pick to the ear.
Re hacking- I forget what it’s called, but it is possible to attach something to a file and follow it back. I’d say you’d only have to worry about it if you’re someone another person wants something from, but with all the @-holes out there today I can see someone doing it just for $h!t@ and giggles. It is also possible to alter timestamps, and I doubt it would be very difficult for someone that can hack into a cloud.
Re what counts as a cloud- I consider a cloud any server designed for the sole purpose of getting a person or business to store computer data of any sort (music, files, etc) that is not directly controlled by that person or business. It is also a server that stores data from multiple companies/individuals instead of just one.
I think Google has some kind of cloud service, but I don’t consider the regular Google search function as a cloud as it is not designed as a place for a person to make something on his/her computer, store it on Google search, and then retrieve it later.
Re Hollywood idea theft- nothing new there. Besides, how many shows come out that are really original versus just a rehash of something that has been kind of successful? How many medical examiner shows have shown up lately? I can think of 3 off the top of my head that are supposed to be “original” shows. Only one is currently on the air. There are now something like 3 versions of the show NCIS; CSI has had a total of 4 shows in it’s franchise, though that seems to be dying. The original just had its final ep and the latest spin-off has been doing poorly in the numbers. Right now Hollywood seems to be primarily in the re-make and re-do business. The Odd Couple has been remade starring Matthew Perry – the second season of that is getting ready to premiere – 12 Monkeys has become a TV show, there is talk of trying to re-do MacGyver in some fashion, and supposedly they’re trying to get a some kind of Lethal Weapon re-boot going.. I have heard of a few others and just can’t think of what they are right now. Not to mention it seems like so much of current TV and movies being made are just adaptations from books or comics.
There is a new show I’m watching for now called Quantico, that focuses on an new FBI agent that has to clear her name in relation to a terrorist bombing. At the beginning of the eps there is an opening voice over to the affect:
‘My name is Alex Parrish. Protecting our country had always been my dream, but my life took a drastic turn. It all started 9 months ago on my way to the FBI academy. I never thought before I could save our country, I’d have to save myself. I need to find the truth.’
The way it is delivered reminds me very much of the openings from Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, enough to make me wonder if that is where it originally came from.
I bet the studios get away with taking the pitch ideas is by taking the broad idea and changing up a few details that make it just different enough, i.e. jobs of the characters or something. Also, the studios know they have all the power and money. Screenwriters don’t make squat and the studios know they can out last the writer in a legal battle.
re Middle Ages foreign words into English – that was because of the Crusades and William the Conqueror. William brought a bunch of French with him, and the people would go on Crusade for years, be around all the foreign influences, and then, if they were lucky, go back home. Prior to that there were the Vikings bringing language changes, but because they were integrating before there was much writing happening outside the church, the changes aren’t as well recorded.
Re Irish- Siobahn and Maebh are both Irish names. Irish is in the Celtic language family, thus the pronunciation rules are different. And there is a version spelled Siobhan, which is the only version I had seen before. (Funnily enough I get a red squiggle under the reporter’s name, but not under the way I had seen it spelled previously.)
Re Chinese- Chinese has about 3000-4000 characters a person needs to be able to get by somewhat fluently, like read a paper or understand people in general settings. In simplified Chinese, there are about 13,000, and in just a general comprehensive there are about 50,000. It gets questionable as to if that makes it more difficult or less to learn, since each character does represent something. Sometimes with the more complicated characters people can guess meaning, though my understanding is that sometimes the more complicated characters have nothing to really do with the meanings of their parts. It is kind of like with German, which absolutely LOVES compound words. Sometimes you get nice simple ones, like Krankenwagen (kranken= sick, wagen= car, so ‘sick car’ for ambulance [which is actually a French word the English have adopted]). Or the real fun when a word means one thing, (setzen= to set/to put) but stick “ein” [which is ‘one’ or the definitive article ‘a’] on the front and it becomes to appoint or to deploy. Or laufen means to run, but anlaufen means to tarnish. ‘An’ is a preposition that can take a few different meanings (always great fun), but still don’t know how sticking it on ‘to run’ becomes ‘to tarnish’.
Re Valley Girl dialect- I think the boy equivalent would probably be ‘Surfer Dude’, which I associate with the over use of words like ‘bro’ and ‘dude’. Maybe what I’m thinking of is more of a Stoner thing. Or do the two possible have quite a bit of crossover? Do you know the 80s movie ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’? The way the two main characters talk is what I’m thinking might be the male equivalent to Valley Girl. Thinking on it, I’ve heard females do voices that are definitely supposed to be them as high on drugs, but nothing that is ever just associated as high on weed, at least in language used. There is the emotional differences, like happy high is usually weed, versus some of the more dramatic mood swings on some of the harder drugs, but don’t remember vocab differences.
Re spoilers- I’m like you. I don’t want to know any prior to watching the show/movie. If it is something I really enjoyed and I watch it a second time, I like being able to see bits that I may have missed previously that point to later events, but don’t like going in spoiled. Personally I don’t enjoy it as much if I’ve been spoiled because I’m waiting for the event to happen instead of just enjoying the show. It is getting absurd, though, in trying to avoid spoilers. People do the live-tweeting bs and aren’t always that careful what they put in, and then it seems like the second the ep is done sites have their reviews of the ep up, and it is always filled with spoilers. In the US we have multiple airings because of time zones, which in some cases leads to a 3-hour difference between when the east half of the country sees it versus west, and cannot imagine how miserable it is trying to avoid spoilers for the later broadcasts.
Re Doctor Who comics- I’ve seen them advertised over here, but I’ve never seen any in person. There are also supposed to be some short novels and kiddie novels with the different Doctors. I think I’ve seen some with Baker’s Doctor on the cover. They’re mostly the last few Doctors, though.
Re Doctor Who Doctor chronology- the problem is those are wiki entries, so who knows what actual cannon is until the writers are forced to address it. Also, John Hurt’s War Doctor is supposed to represent the Eighth Doctor (originally played by Paul McGann, the unsuccessful reboot I think you’re referring to) during the Time War, apparently. My mistake in not knowing enough of the back story, and thought the first Doctor was the one involved in the Time War. Even if you delete McGann Doctor from the story, though, with the new reboot addressing the Time War with John Hurt as the War/Eighth Doctor, that still makes Capaldi number 12, and Time Lord biology set forth by the series, he should technically be the last one. I’m sure they’ll figure out something to do with all the energy the other Time Lords sent through that time tear or whatever it was.
There was also a scene in “The Time of the Doctor” where all the Doctors incarnations until that time are standing together. There are 11 in the photo. It is the last photo on the following page.
http://www.geeksofdoom.com/2013/11/24/doctor-who-the-day-of-the-doctor-thoughts-and-theories
Re car shows- Like you suggest you could probably have some kind of car show that looks at reviews of old cars in the local country, but I think there could also be some international play. Personally I find the international cars more interesting than the American ones simply for novelty reasons. Have seen the old US cars so much that I’m just sick of them, and don’t much care for many of the body styles. It’s like the Corvette: a classic American muscle car that has had fan for years with the different body types. The first one of those I thought had a nice body was the 2015. Old non-American cars are a rarity to see over here, though, so always more interested in those.
Re Jeremy Clarkson, James May, etc- officially Clarkson’s contract (which ended in April) just wasn’t renewed over a “fracas” (that happened in early March). No details ever did come out as to what exactly happened other than it involved Clarkson and a guy that had worked on the show for years. Saw the interview May did on his doorstep, which I think happened like the day after the story broke that the BBC had pulled Top Gear off the air. May and Hammond are both off of Top Gear, as well. There are a bunch of internet rumors that say Hammond and May walked in support of Clarkson, or at least they left because they don’t think Top Gear will work without him. They’re contracts were up the same time as Clarkson’s, though, and remember seeing a news article that claimed to be paraphrasing May about the BBC just quietly not wanting him or Hammond to come back to Top Gear.
Whatever happened between the BBC and Clarkson, Hammond, and May I’ll find it interesting to see what happens with BBC’s Top Gear reboot and the Amazon show the boys are doing. The TG reboot is going to be led by some guy called Chris Evans, who has already been kicked off the BBC in the past for his actions, but sounds like he kissed enough @$$ to make it back on to some of their tv shows and host his own radio show. So far it doesn’t sound like he or the BBC have their act together regarding what they want to do. First Evans was saying there was no way, under any circumstances that he would be a Top Gear presenter; few weeks later he was announcing he would be at the helm now. At one point they were holding open international auditions for the other presenters, but it sounded like a complete farce. First there was going to be a website set up for it, then it became just send a 30-second vid to an e-mail address. And the vid was only supposed to be the wanna be presenter talking directly to the camera against a blank wall. I guess people in the business can get a feel for a person just talking straight at the camera for 30-seconds, but what happens if they can’t do it when they’re required to move? First the age cut off was 16 years old, then it became 17 years old. I just can’t see any insurance company happily handing keys for any car, even the most boring car in production, to a 17 year old kid. Also, how would being international work? Would the person have to move to the UK, or would international segments on the show be done by locals? Will also be interesting to see how the reboot does internationally versus in the UK. The execs at the Beeb talk like the international audience won’t care that the presenters have changed, but since there have been several international spin-offs of Top Gear and the UK version still beat out most of those, I get the feeling that the execs will be in for a rude awakening once the international numbers start coming in. From what I’ve read, most of the people kept tuning in because they found the boys entertaining, not because the audience was a bunch of car nuts. Guess we’ll see what happens next year.
Re allergies – if scientists could figure out what actually caused allergies, somebody would become very rich, and allergy meds could finally be made that really worked instead of just treating symptoms. I used to be allergy free, then developed a dust allergy when I was about 12, and then at uni developed an allergy to something in nature, don’t know if it is some kind of mold or pollen, but autumn has become a bit of an allergy hell. Would love to know what changed in my biology that I now have allergies.
Re candy- the US doesn’t get the chocolate Smarties, or at least they aren’t called that, and I’ve never seen any in person so don’t know what our closest equivalent would be. The Smartie that is sold in the US is basically a pressed sugar with a little bit of flavor added. They look like this:
https://quique123.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/ios-smarties/
I’m guessing the US equivalent of Paddle Pops would be the fudge popsicles, which I’ve always been kinda of meh about. The biscuit you mention, we have stuff like that here, just without the fruit filling. Find it funny when you look at cookies from other countries how many of them have some kind of fruit jelly incorporated whereas the US biscuits pretty much are just either chocolate and/or sugar in its varying forms. And I don’t understand what seems to be a European fascination with hazelnuts in sweets.
And as I’m finishing this, two more updates are popping up. F*@(#%*(@))%*&#*% UPDATES!
Word Count: 4529
EDIT:
To go along with all the update nonsense, I could do without every website trying to tie all your accounts into one. I had to create a new e-mail to get into this one job website, and because I didn't want to give yahoo my mobile number, I used gmail. Now, because Youtube is tied to Google, when I log into the job site e-mail, it logs me out of YT. I have never wanted my YT page connected to anything else; I don't want to use my Facebook (which I haven't been on in years) to connect to every other website or app in existence. I like keeping things separate. People are up in arms every time a news story comes out about the amount of information a company or government is collecting, but the people do it themselves with allowing everything to be tied together. If I want to keep pages and accounts separate that were separate when they were created, I should be allowed to do that. If I want to create a new account for a certain purpose, I should be allowed to do that without the company that owns the different pages automatically tying that account to everything they own. I should have the option to add websites to that account as I see fit, not the #%@# company decides.
Sorry about the update and account rants, but I really think both have gotten completely out of hand.
You get a lot of updates for Firefox and Word? I thought that you said you were using Apple! I don't use Word, really, and I haven't had any major glitches using Libre Office...or, if I have, I've represessed the memories! Haven't noticed Firefox needing a lot updates either. If you're using them on Apple, maybe that explains the different update frequency? Have heard that Apple itself hasn't been the best with it's new OSs. Read about something on this recently in The Age's Green Guide tv lift-out...hopefully it's the same as this online version:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/os-x-el-capitan-review-20150908-gji800.html
Hmm...speaking of annoying...Libre insisted on turning OSs into Oss...had to add my phrase to the dictionary! Libre is stupid...I changed back its “corrections” multiple times but it never took the hint!
Windows X is out now and I've heard/read more than one person say that they will hold off updating to it until December at the earliest and early next year at the latest due to concerns about bugs...gives the Support staff time to get used to helping customers...presumably Microsoft's Support staff. Do remember reading that the Windows X beta had keystroke logging capabilities to monitor the OS's performance etc. I suspect that that is a “hidden” feature of the full release...for “national security” reasons, of course! Being cynical, I wonder how many other “glitches” are intentional...for “national security” reasons, of course!
Speaking of creepy...I was watching Gruen XL last night (23/10) on my PVR...it's the extended version of that show on advertising...you mentioned liking some of the “The pitch” segments on that where ad people try to sell you something unpopular. One of the guests said that the pre-roll ads that you see on You Tube – which is owened by Google – can target ads to you based on Google's knowledge of your email account with them. E.g. it might notice that you got your first phone bill emailed to you a year ago, so a competitor telco would be well placed to screen an ad for you before you watch the You Tube you want to watch. It's stuff like that that makes me wish I hadn't signed up to Gmail...I avoid Google too...e.g. I'll use Duckduckgo or StartPage...the latter being Google without the surveillance on you.
Actually, as I'm writing this, I have no idea if I will be able to post it. The other day I tried logging into IMDB but there was a problem...something to do with “SSL”...I'm assuming that that relates to my attempting to avoid their advertising analytics through more secure access...which is strange, as I've been doing it for ages...but IMDB assures me that they are looking to support SSL in the future. I did read that Facebook is or will allow access to its site from browsers like Tor, which is an anonymising browser. Speaking of Facebook...I have read how the police catch some criminals...they just look at the criminals' social media postings and voila! Gotcha! i.e. the criminals advertise where in the world they are...which is different to the covert surveillance of their communications which I'm sure that they're capable of.
Re Video games, after playing Bioshock many years ago and wanting to get around to playing it again, I got the excuse to do so after completing the Bioshock Infinite DLC “Burial at sea, episode 2” (I liked the main game and the 2nd episode of “Burial at sea” especially) because that DLC ties directly into the first game. Anyway, when I inserted the disc for Bioshock, there was an update ready to go...version 1.10, at around 200Mb. Not so bad really, Perhaps this is a good thing about being online...bugs and glitches can be fixed. Have heard astonishing file sizes for XBone game updates though. I.e. games with updates more than 10Gb in size...perhaps even multiples of this! I'm sure that that would destroy many people's monthly download limit!
Not sure if you've played the Assassin's Creed games but they've built a reputation as games requiring day one patches...consumers are basically paying the company full price for their game for the “privilege” of beta testing it for them! Blame the consumers for this? I don't think so...companies like Ubisoft (who make that series) mustn't pay people to test their games for bugs. Why would they? People pay THEM to do it...for free!
As for games not playable without the latest updates...I think there are two issues here...have heard that sometimes that the “update” buggers up working version that you have and you can't revert to the working version of the game...i.e. you have to wait for them to fix the update which was supposed to “fix” something that probably wasn't broken. Secondly, you can avoid all this malarkey by just being offline...your game will play fine...unless it already isn't...in which case...go online and update it! Some companies are probably better than others about improving their games via updates, I'm sure.
Before I forget, I want to return to something we spoke about earlier, I think...household alternatives to home products...I've got a couple of “Switched on” tv guide lift-outs from the Herald Sun newspaper and on the back of them I saw ads on this topic: “Vinegar “Nature's secret weapon””. It's a book, and there's a list of things it's supposedly good for, like “dissolve chewing gum”, “Clean brass, copper and pewter” as well as “Ease nausea and stomach upset” etc. Ooh..”Guard against food poisoning”! The other book I see an ad for is “The traditional household handbook” with claims like “Banish puffy ankles with this this kitchen cupboard ingredient” and “Soothe tired, sore feet with this pepper in your your socks”. Does this one mean anything to you? “Find out how hairspray can make your lino look new”. Mentioned that because I saw an ad for a tv show on SBS TV I think, where an elderly person felt useful by teaching someone what “lino” was! Is that a thing in the US? Or did you/do you call it something else? Hmm...both books are sold by the same company. There might be more books advertised in this way...just didn't keep a copy of them for the purposes of our chat.
Re Clarke and Dawe requiring local familiarity...I agree, which is why I haven't linked to a lot of their videos...but occasionally I think that they do have something of a more general nature which overseas viewers might find amusing. Even if some of the references are local, I think that maybe the foibles they satirise are universal? Clarke did write a tv sitcom called “The games” which was about the preparation for the Sydney Olympics. I remember finding amusing, in a Pythonesque way, one character, perhaps played by Clarke, of whether anyone would notice if the the 100m track wasn't 100m long. Chances are good that they would, I think! Anyway, I think that he unsuccessfully sued the BBC (?) for a sitcom with the same premise...in the lead up to the London Olympics...he made a remark to the effect that he provided free material to them. Not sure if in that case the law wasn't an ass...but I've not seen the UK show. I read Clarke's comment in a Wiki entry for something...maybe his bio, or the show, don't remember.
Many, many, many years ago, I saw an American comedian here (i.e. I went to his show...at the Hilton). It occurred to me that I might find him very amusing...if I had any idea who the Hell he was talking about! From very vague memory, he referenced Governors...probably from obscure US states. I just had no idea. Not sure if he was billed as having appeared on well known US talk shows/late shows...Carson maybe.
Re Nokia clamshell phones...from memory, maybe that was the point….i.e. Nokia didn't move with the times by introducing these kinds of “innovations” (clamshell design etc.). re your Tundra phone...that's all Greek for me! Think I mentioned before that the top of the line Sony smart phone is water and dust proof. Have also seen “tough” mobile phones at one telco's store...I think it has their brand on it too...guessing you could probably drop it a few times with no drama but I'm not sure how well it does underwater or in dusty environments.
I dropped my ancient Motorola phone down the toilet. Not on purpose, mind. For some reason it stopped working. It had “Snake” on it, that's how old it was! Replaced it with a 3G mobile which I picked up for $29, I think, at a service station...saved myself about $6 as I was going for cheap and though that a $35 phone was the best that I could do. I do have a proper smart phone...just haven't take it out of its box yet though! I'm looking at replacing the Android OS on it with a more private OS...Cyanogen Mod is one such one...but I'm new to all this geeky stuff, so it's just gathering dust at the moment!
That stuff that you mention on Foxconn does ring a bell. From memory it was about being overworked and underpaid or something like that. Stuff like that has been big news in Australia recently, with companies like 7 Eleven etc. Some years back, Australia's richest woman(actually, the world's richest woman! Noticed that when deciding to add a link, below), Gina Rinehart, was saying that Australian's should get paid less...after all, people in Africa are working for $2 a day! She was blowing a lot of hot air about working hard for a living...she was born into a mining magnate's family...and she was in charge when there was a commodities boom here...she had it given to her on a plate! I was amused by this US article on her brain fart:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/05/business/la-fi-mo-richest-woman-pay-20120905
Actually, skimming that article again, the LAT seems a bit Bolshie, don't you think? Seems “unAmerican” to me!
Re ratings measurements...I'm assuming that the number of tvs bought in the US is a known quantity and then you'd just infer what the average per household is...as I'm assuming that the US – being the US – would have some homes with a lot of TVs in them. As for knowing which houses are watching on the regular broadcasts (you mean FTA TV?), presumably the technology monitors that kind of stuff? i.e. set top boxes, cable etc? The Age's Green Guide TV guide lift-out now includes ratings for pay TV and even more new, downloads. It looks like iTunes provides the numbers for their downloads chart, although I could have sworn I'd seen another source listed at times...perhaps ABC TV's iView online platform?
As for your calculations on how many Americans don't have a tv, I can't comment on your reasoning...I would say though that I think that we've covered this topic earlier in this thread, so if your figure for the number of people (households?) is different to what the articles we discussed before mentioned, then I'd go with their numbers, not yours, as far as what % of the US population is determining what we all watch. Just removed a small para here of my trying to work with your numbers but my brain is fried and to save myself any embarrassment I've deleted it! i.e. pretty sure that I'm on the wrong track with my maths and/or reasoning!
For the sake of argument, I'll take your % of the number of people determining what you watch on TV...I'd just say that maybe there is a bias in your thinking re why so many people getting the irrits when a show goes off the air...i.e. perhaps you mingle with people with similar tastes and that amplifies the perceived “movement” of people irritated by the changes? I'm not saying that you're wrong though...I did mention previously that the meter companies here have been accused of ignoring or under representing the non-commercial TV viewers, those who watch ABC TV and SBS TV. Not a true representative sample, perhaps (here I might differ from you, somewhat...i.e. so long as the sample broadly reflects the broader society, having a small number of participants isn't necessarily a bad thing...but I agree with you re using modern means to count more viewers as that just makes it more of a straight out verification of actual ratings, not a sample)? It sounds like you would welcome MORE surveillance of viewers to get better programming outcomes? Can you guess my thoughts on that? Well, I suppose it's the method and intent of that surveillance. There was a story (this year?) about a TV company with a smart TV which accepted voice commands...and your talk around the TV was under surveillance, so to speak...pretty vague on this though...best if I try and find a source, here…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2945766/Is-TV-eavesdropping-PRIVATE-conversations-Samsung-warns-users-smart-sets-capture-word.html
The female panellist on Gruen XL which I mentioned earlier expressed disappointment that her data wasn't being mined because the You Tube pre-roll ads were of no interest to her!
The other day, I was reading The Australian newspaper and I made a note of one article on this TV topic...the article I saw is behind a paywall and a similar (identical) from the WSJ was also, but at least they gave you the opening paragraph or so. Found this following article...not sure if it's the same one I saw or not:
http://ih.advfn.com/p.php?pid=nmona&article=68945439
Even though the story does centre on the advertising focus of this company, there is a line in there about it helping networks decide whether to keep low rating shows on air “because it has an avid group of return viewers”. Avid return viewers? I'm not sure how to juggle that description with “low rating”...why court the viewers of one low rating show while dropping another show with similar numbers? Dunno. Just because? Maybe the cost of production comes into it? i.e. low rating cheap show desirable over a low rating expensive show. FTA TV is pretty much dead to me now anyway, as I'm not into their cheap reality type shows in any case.
You mention promos for a show's next episodes...I get annoyed when that includes a spoiler...e.g. if someone seems to be in trouble or dead or something, what's the point of a promo for the next episode removing the suspense? Not sure who comes up with those stupid promos...the networks?
As for pop-ups on TV show and #showname etc...occasionally I watch Q&A where Twitter is a big part of the actual programme...I find the Tweets distracting from the discussion but occasonally you do read quite a good or witty Tweet. Todd was saying on Gruen on that episode that I mentioned that advertisers are doing stuff we hate on online ads, e.g. pop-ups, screen takeovers etc. Was reading an article about how one software company removed its product from a site because the site often had links which looked like the download link for the product but was for something else...I would HATE if that kind of shytte became a thing on TV. Back to your point...people can't really multi-task...Tweeting during a show about the show just seems a way to miss a good show! Kind of like going to see your favourite band live and watching them on your mobile phone's screen as you record it. Pointless.
Re that mystery Aboriginal dead guy...to answer your questions I'd have to re-read the transcript of the show via their website (as opposed to re-watching it there)...not something that I really want to do. From memory, I think that they got different dates because they used different methodologies, but I'm just guessing. I really doubt if the show would interview people without a clue, although one of the reporters did get shown up on Media Watch by relying on dodgy “experts” on an unreleated story, concerning the effectiveness of statins, from memory...I think her story got removed as a result.
Speaking of Aboriginals...I did hear somewhere that their languages don't really fit on the linguistic family tree...same goes for Hebrew, from memory. The Aboriginals are apparently more ancient than the Chinese, so not sure that your idea that they could have been ancestors...or maybe you're suggesting that the Chinese killed the Aboriginal? As far as I know, the Chinese came to Australia during the gold rush of the 19th century, at the earliest...but I could be wrong.
Re Antarctic acidity experiment...I do remember reading a comment on their website raising the issue that you raise, evolution. That did seem like a good point to me at the time. On the other hand, bees are in trouble, apparently, so I'm not sure if evolution will be their saviour...can we afford to risk krill dying out instead of acting on climate change. Speaking of bees, when I walk to the supermarket, I often notice dead bees on the footpath. Not sure if that's natural attrition of the males or more signs of their imminent demise! Not sure that people stealing hives to make some money is helping things much!
...Hmm…double negatives...”And I wouldn’t think there would still be modern grave robbers if people weren’t being buried with some valuables”...you mean that you think there are modern grave robbers because people get buried with valuables? That meaning seemed natural...after repeating your sentence more than once! Not sure if you are also implying that your granddad didn't like your family or had no friends because he got buried with some nice things...but that's a scab we needn't pick...just noticed the inference because of your other comment in that paragraph.
Re “Murder mystery” reminding you of “Detachable penis”, within the last year or so, I think, I heard one new (?) song on the radio and the verses always raised the expectation for me that the song was about to kick into the chorus of a more famous, older song. Pity I don't have a note on what song that is...or if I do, it's buried somewhere. Sort of related, I was initially not into a song by Hunters & Collectors which had a terrific, off-kilter intro, followed by what sounds like a chopped down version of the riff in Boston's great song “More than a feeling” Managed to overcome that feeling that H&C's riff was a “lesser” version of MTAF...now I consider the H&C song a classic too. If you're interested, here's the song:
Hunters & Collectors – Holy grail
Official channel...not sure if you can view it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQI5fdVCvlU
Poorer quality video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nws1K56w8vg
Audio only (a lot of the videos seem to have to somebody else's audio tag on it (re “astro mix”...speaking of which, I have vague memories of coming across a visual tag for many music videos that I'd look at on You Tube...think the uploader may have been “SkidVidz” or something like that...it's like that they imagined themselves to be a content provider or something! Wonder how many people that name would arouse nostalgia in!)...I doubt that that it's in the original song...appears on both audio only and video uploads. I love the horns on this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAVqknI7GGI
re you finding it a bit of a “pick to the ear”...you mean the guitar in (Murder mystery?) to sharp sounding or something? Some songs are like that for me too, e.g. the classic Van Halen song “Panama” with EVH's piercing notes or Midnight Oil's classic instrumental “Wedding Cake Island”...which reminds me of The Shadows' instrumentals from decades earlier.
Re hacking...I know that emails that you can get do let the sender know whether you have opened their email...probably with regards to emails from businesses to those who've used or signed up to their services. Have also noticed myself emails that are timestamped to an earlier time...and you know for a fact that it wasn't there at the time signified by the spoofed timestamp.
Re your definition of “cloud”...I get the impression that that would discount “ownCloud”, which I mentioned some replies back as a better alternative to cloud servers...from memory, you thought it was less secure than a cloud and maybe even still a cloud service. Found a disc which has it...yes, it is a cloud service, it seems, but it's your own...presumably secure from companies which provide those services to you, and perhaps know what you store (for advertising purposes or whathaveyou).
Re Google perhaps having some kind of cloud service...I wouldn't think that there's any doubt any on that! I mean their Office kind of applications (documents, spreadsheets, etc.).
Back to your definition of “cloud”: “any server designed for the sole purpose of getting a person or business to store computer data of any sort (music, files, etc) that is not directly controlled by that person or business”...I'm not sure what you mean by that last bit...the person or business who stores their own data doesn't directly control it? Your next sentence also seems to go to the status of ownCloud, I think: “It is also a server that stores data from multiple companies/individuals instead of just one”. I'm guessing that ownCloud stores just one person's data...but I could be wrong...assuming that you use your own drive or server to store your own data in the cloud.
Re Hollywood theft...I would think that it does happen, but you're right, a rehash wouldn't count. When I was watching Supernatural, I just considered it an inferior version of Buffy and The X Files. Those other shows you mentioned (NCIS etc.) I wouldn't put in that category though, as the rights holders are making the show or at least have permission to use the IP in it. Re comic book adaptations...haven't really gotten into those either...all those Marvel movies which eventually descend into just short of mediocre territory remind me of what I loved alternative comic book treatments like Kick-Ass and Hancock.
You mentioned Quantico...sort of related...to LoM and A2A...I wonder if one of the earliest pop cultural references to songs (Bowie in particular) was via Doctor Who...in the Classic series, I think that there is a story arc called “The spiders from Mars”...and having heard “Ziggy Stardust” on the radio the other day, the lyric in the song triggered that memory for me...I'll just search now for the details…oh...it's called “Planet of the spiders”...the term “regeneration” is used here for the first time. Not Mars though...maybe I conflated that with “Pyramids of Mars” or something...ah...just forget it! ...or maybe you can think of other such pop cultural references from way back?
You sound really knowledgeable on your language stuff! Not sure how much your comments about Middle Ages changes overlaps with my previous point about The Great Vowel Shift...but since I remembered the phrase to search, I thought I'd link to the Wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
If you look at the first table on that page for the word “bite”, I'd say that I would have thought that the pronunciation would have been more like “beetah” (rhymes with “cheetah”)...the pre GVS vowel symbol would, I think, have been pronounced that way and is, I think, in language like Italian, even now. I probably gave some examples of that kind of thing years ago in this thread but I forget now of what those exmaples would be. Think I may also have mentioned the New Zealand accent with regards to the GVS...as in that process has continued in that country to this day, which accounts for some of their bizarre pronunciations...probably mentioned some examples of that here before, like 'fush and chups” (for “fish and chips”) and “He's dead now” for “Here's dad now”. That's why Australians are gobsmacked that Americans can't differentiate between the Australian and New Zealand accent...and perhaps Americans feel the same way about foreigners confusing the American and Canadian accent? Anyway, my point re this is that phonetic pronunciation of words has weakened as a result of the GVS...which brings me back to my earlier point about the pronunciation of the word “knight”...i.e. it would not have been pronounced centuries ago as it is now, a homophone for “night”. Looking up that word showed a nice Venn diagram here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophone
re Siobahn...my Libre spell check is red inking that too...maybe I'd only ever seen Siobhan before too...perhaps it's possible that the News story misspelled her name? I dunno.
Gosh...your discussion on Chinese and German etc...are you researching this just for this discussion? Sheesh! If I haven't mentioned it already, I think I read that Chinese characters do have some sort of similarities so that you can guess their meanings by those similarities. Re German...I did come come across an article on this recently but the details escape me...one of those Buzzfeed type articles, I think, re the top 10 German compound words or something...if you want to try your luck searching that online...probably quite recent*. Re those compound words...I seem to remember something similar in a Flying Circus sketch, but with those absurdly long Dutch names or whatever...like you sometimes see in South African cricket teams etc. Ah...found it pretty quickly!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMRjnM6j6w
...and I just noticed the nipple tickle at the end there! Re animation.
* Ah to Hell with it...managed to find that article on German compound words myself (fortunately!)…
http://mentalfloss.com/article/61140/15-unique-illnesses-you-can-only-come-down-german
It just occurred to me today (12/11/2015) that “x” is another letter that is redundant in English...
Re Valley Girl speak...well, I was thinking that it was a specific dialect fro a specific region...in which case, the boys from that specific region don't have as marked a speech as the girls do? Re Surver Dude...isn't that more California, perhaps? Is the Valley and the surf geographically close?
Recentlyish this article seems to have cause a buzz on social media about Australian English apparently being influenced by drunkeness (?!):
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-fourth-r-missing-from-australian-education-20151025-gkhv8k.html
I can't say that the man sounds very scholarly to me...seems a sort of jokey piece. More interesting, however, was some discussion on the article by someone who isn't an actual linguist...and they dismiss that article's contentions. Not sure if these links will work, but it's audio...over half an hour though, so, feel free to ignore (1st link has expired, but it has programme details):
https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/peKJ3Gyg6L?play=true
Hmm...I don't see a podcast for the relevant episode, which was the 13/11/2015:
http://www.abc.net.au/nightlife/podcast.htm
It would be a pity if it's unavailable, as the linguist mentioned that a lot of the examples to do with Australian speech losing certain vowels or consonants in speech are in fact typical for UK English...for many centuries etc. Scrap that...the guest on the programme quoted a UK linguist as describing the article as “bollocks”...I managed to track down his reasons, which makes for good reading:
http://david-crystal.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/on-one-word-reaction-to-reports-about.html
Re Doctor Who short novels...I've got quite a few...assuming that they're aimed at teenagers. On Gruen this week (I'm typing this bit on 08/11/2015) they mentioned Star Wars and how its market includes adults and many of the panellists mentioned how they got their kids to watch the early movies with them, in preparation for the new movie coming out soon).
Re Spoilers...not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I was playing the PS3 game Heavy Rain years back and the controls were so obscure that I had to look up how to manoeuvre in a different direction in a tunnel...annoyingly, the solution that I found online also gave away the identity of the serial killer that you were trying to work out the identity of...because the person who revealed that couldn't work out how the killer could move around in those tunnels. Sheesh!
Re Doctor Who, I was chatting with someone who seemed to have retained information on the series better than I have...they've seen episodes multiple times. They mentioned that The War Doctor isn't the same as the McGann Doctor, I don't think...I can confirm that with that scene at the end of “The day of the Doctor”:
https://scifijubilee.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/the-day-of-the-doctor-12-doctors1.jpg
In that picture, both the War Doctor and the McGann Doctor are in the shot. The person that I was chatting too also mentioned that the Tennant Doctor used up one regeneration...he regenerated looking like himself! So that complicates the whole issue re the number of regenerations that a Time Lord can have. On the other hand, the person also mentioned – perhaps with regard to the pre-Capaldi Doctor? - that the Doctor had somehow acquire a whole NEW lot of regenerations! So, sounds like they have another 12 to go now? I dunno...I don't immerse myself in the lore, so much! In the photo that you linked to, it looks like the War Doctor and McGann's Doctor are standing next to each other too...although you only see the back of them.
Re cars...I remember reading that Australia's muscle cars in the 1970s were for a time the fastest production cars in the world, until there was a moral panic about this and they had back off. Not sure how they're regarded overseas but they're well regarded here...cars like the Monaro etc, which is a Holden car...they had a lion logo and a “GMH” badge, I think, for General Motors Holden. Guessing that the Interceptor car used in the Mad Max films might be a “hot” item, even internationally. Australia's conservative government goaded the U.S. car makers to leave if they thought things were bad here and...they'll be gone in the next year or two, I think. Without a local angle to Fords and Holdens here, I read that luxury European cars are selling well here...I mean the ones priced favourably to the more expensive Fords and Holdens produced locally here...guessing in the $50,000+ range for those cars.
Re Top Gear...I think that I read that Clarkson headbutted or, more likely, punched one of the producers or something. Also read something about Clarkson, May and Hammond getting over $100,000,000 for moving to Amazon. That's $US, I think. Anyway, seems that you all up to speed on this! I just stumbled on that kind of info.
Just Wikid Chris Evans...he was briefly married to Billie Piper, a companion of the first rebooted Doctor! Also mentions that he was offered £56m for shares in a media company that he owned...he didn't sell for that price but he later sold his share for £250,000! Presumably to another company?
Re what causes allergies, like I said before, it's my impression that it's caused by poor gut flora. That gut flora acts as part of the immune system, if I remember correctly, and once you have poor gut flora, your immune system overreacts to even the most mildest of stimuli, causing diseases of inflammation etc. Apparently most major Western diseases are inflammation related. As for cures, one or two of those docus that I mentioned (i.e. “Life on us” and that Catalyst episode) mentioned poo “transplants”. i.e. for people with extremely poor gut bacteria, they basically have to have “healthy” poo (from somebody else!) implanted into their gut...and theirs two way to do that...I'm guessing that all of them choose to have it rectally inserted as the lesser of two evils! Otherwise it's the other end of the alimentary canal.
In case you mentioned having asthma (I delete your comments that I've already responded to...I just happened to read an article today – 25/11/2015 – which relates to this point), there was a short article in the Herald Sun today on this...can't find their snippet but it looks very similar (identical?) to this old story...same university and the same or similar number of participants:
http://www.dental-tribune.com/articles/news/americas/15863_periodontal_disease_may_elevate_asthma_risk.html
I get the feeling that I may have raised this connection before, in an any case, re the Catalyst episode or “Life on us” short series. I was reading The Australian on 03/12/2015 and they ran a story from The Times about c-section babies being more likely to have asthma. Couldn't find that specific story but this story seems to have been going around for years, like here:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/06/02/babies-born-by-cesarean-section-may-not-gain-benefits-of-vaginal-microbiome.html
The phrase in the URL is what I wanted to mention...now there's no need to...I think I also raised that aspect in my previous discussion here of “Life on us” etc.
re snacks...looked at your Smarties pic...not like our Smarties. Don't spend a whole lot of time in that section of the supermarket but I was wondering if M&Ms had pushed them off the shelf, so to speak...but maybe they're still around. Here's a picture of them:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/Smarties-UK-Candies.jpg/1024px-Smarties-UK-Candies.jpg
I've mentioned my little eating “rituals” and I had that for Smarties...suck on them till they lost their colour and they had a soft shell, then bite them. Hmm...just checked my spelling of “till”...I had used “til” before I edited it...this may or may not interest you:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6989/what-is-the-difference-between-till-and-until
Anyway, M&Ms are to small for my eating ritual, but I did use it for the peanut M&M variety.
All this snack discussion that we've been having got me visiting the biscuit aisle of the supermarket again! That marshmallow biscuit I mentioned before is Arnott's Royals. It's got pink marshmallow in it. Prefer it to the variety with white marshmallow in it...which I must have ate as a kid...a long, long time ago. From memory, I didn't like the texture of the white marshmallow and maybe the taste too.
You mention fruit filling...I quite like Rocky Roads. Have noticed that the Rocklea variety now seem to not include the raspberry jelly type pieces in it...I don't eat them anymore! Living at home as a kid, I remember my mum loving Tim Tams...they never appealed to me. Recently I noticed some special editions come out...new flavours by a celebrity patissiere (sp?) here called “Zumbo”. They weren't so bad. Tried a regular Tim Tam today (05/12/2015) and it was okay...but I wouldn't eat them again.
Re European fascination with hazelnuts...I don't mind them. I used to like eating a chocolate biscuit called “Golden rough”...it had coconut in it. You buy them in single serves. Read today an interview with former Oasis founder Noel Gallagher (not sure I've mentioned this band before here...very popular in England and they say some funny-stupid things. Maybe I linked to their great song “Free” (or was it called “Whatever”?) for the cellos in it...which I seem to remember you saying you played or something...the cello in the song was playing simple stuff though. Anyway, he's quoted as saying that he likes are chocolate bars like Violet Crumble and Cherry Ripe and “Obviously the Tim Tam goes without saying. Australian chocolate is fu..in' good, man”. In Herald Sun, 03/12/2015, “Hit” lift-out, p.39.
I like Violet Crumbles, but they congeal in your mouth and stick to your teeth, which is a negative. I like Crunchies, which are sort of the same, but I'd often get a bad one which meant that it too would congeal in your mouth and stick to your teeth, which annoys me. Have I mentioned the Scottish habit of deep frying everything? Apparently deep fried Mars bars are a delicacy over there!
By the by...when I was watching Gruen during its run this year, they mentioned store brands in supermarkets. One of the panellists mentioned that this is usually a turn-off for consumers but, paradoxically, Aldi's store brands are considered 'boutique' or something by consumers! I ate some Rocky Road biscuits today from the supermarkets own range of products and I don't mind them. “Weirdly”, one supermarket has two store brands...for their Home Brand frozen lasagne, I find that pretty banal but I like their more “upmarket” lasagne, which is relatively cheap, compared to the name brands.
Re websites tying accounts together...yeah, it bugs me too. Thought of using The Face Book when some tv show I watch or something mentions something on their, but FB demands that I give them my mobile number...no doubt for my “security”. Yeah, right. Eff 'em! Personally, I think that it would be a good idea to break up companies like Google...not a fan of them now owning You Tube. Not a fan of them being behind the Android OS either, to tell you the truth! Trying to wean myself off the big US corporations which spy on you for their own ends or for the NSA. Do remember reading something about Yahoo being threatened with a daily fine by the US if they didn't play ball with them re providing user information. If Yahoo would have refused, I think it would have cost them hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Not a fan of the police state or providing my mobile number to US corporations. It's bs. Tying accounts together no doubt allows the big US corporations to monitor your usage better...for targeting ads at you, at least.
Not sure if I've forgotten anything...but I'll leave you with this Clarke & Dawe bit...not sure if the “mathematical” nature of it makes it more or less accessible for you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjrMXmsJKcg
Word count: 6,101
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
(This isn't really 3 parts. Could have gotten away with two, unless the character count per response has changed, but guessed wrong where to cut it when pasting over from Word, and IMDB cut my second one. Easier to just do a third instead of deleting and redoing posts.)
Re updates- I think some of the software for Apple has been having to do some security catch-up more recently because all the phising websites, viruses, etc, are being formatted now to include Apple stuff. Before it was primarily Windows targets, but since so many people have switched over or are using iPhones, it makes sense. Word seems to be one a month or so, Firefox seems to finally have calmed down. Adobe Flash is probably the worst. For a bit there, it was like once a week an update was coming out, and several sites wouldn’t play with the out-of-date plug-in. At one point Youtube was even refusing to play, though it didn’t say it was because of outdated Flash, and had to do some looking to figure that one out.
Re Apple OS- It seems like ever since they started naming the OS after mountains, they’ve been getting some mixed reviews. The updates are supposedly free to download, but from the reviews in the App Store I haven’t done any of them, yet. Realistically, my computer could probably handle the update without much fuss, but I’m really concerned about my parents’. Theirs is an ‘09 (so ancient by tech standards), and a lot of the reviewers mention that their older machines can’t handle the update; that after the new OS is installed the machine runs really slow and certain programs doesn’t work right. It is getting to the point where I just need to do it. Certain websites are only working correctly in certain web browsers, and trying to teach my father anything new in tech isn’t worth the hassle.
The review article you linked to seems to be one of the people who has had good luck. Wish he had said how long it took him to download. Some reviews I’ve read said it took them upwards of two days, only for something to go wrong at the end and having to start over.
Re Windows X key logging- primary reason right there not to go back to Windows. There are times I get frustrated with something little on Mac OS for some inane reason, and then a few days latter be on a Windows based computer trying to get into a setting or something like that, and it makes remember why I replaced my last computer with a Mac and why I have no desire to go back to a Windows OS. Granted, it will probably get to a point where Windows will once again dominate, and then Apple will get it’s act together, and so on. Unless a new player gets in the game and is able to take both of them.
Re Gmail- only created a gmail account because I needed a new e-mail address and yahoo refused to let me create a new one without giving them my mobile number. I understand it is supposed to be a security feature, but I don’t hand out my mobile number lightly, and don’t think I should have to give it just to create a damned e-mail account. On top of that I have a YT acct from before Google bought it, and have that tied to a yahoo e-mail add. Whenever I’m logged into my YT acct, it shows on any Google page used, and I can’t be logged into the YT acct at the same time I’m logged into that gmail acct. It all goes back to the BS of trying to connect everything you do online. I much preferred it when it was easy to have everything compartmentalized and easily knowing who was seeing what with the different accts. Might have needed more passwords, but privacy with each site was easier.
Ads on YT, though, seem to get worse every time I use it. Can’t say that I’ve noticed that the ads are anything that I’m really interested in. The 15 or 30 second ones you can’t skip I find something else to do for that time, and the longer ones I skip as soon as the button is there. I think the only time I’ve watched one in full are a couple of movie trailers or if I’m trying to figure out a song that they’re using. The ads generally make me annoyed and less likely to buy whatever they’re advertising. Really hate it when I have a playlist going and instead of hearing the next song there is some stupid ad about make-up or a restaurant. Just play the d-mn video!
[q] The female panellist on Gruen XL which I mentioned earlier expressed disappointment that her data wasn't being mined because the You Tube pre-roll ads were of no interest to her! [/q]
I can sympathize. YT must have figured out my age range and gender so I get a lot of make-up and booze ads. Rarely use make-up and hardly ever drink! The long ads at least can skip after 5 sec. Also bad is that I think some vids get ads added to them if you watch the often. Like there are some lyrics/song vids that I’ve got favourited and when I first started watching them, no ads. Now can’t play it without an ad before the song plays. The worst, probably, are the really long vids that have multiply commercial breaks in the vid that cut in just based on time and cut in during the middle of a song or segment.
Re IMDB login- one of the few sites that I see suggest you login through them, and have facebook and some other as a secondary. Don’t know if that still holds true for newer accts, though. Was surprised I had to login when I opened up a window to do this reply, though. Can’t remember the last time I had to put the info in. Yeah password book!
Re stupid Facebook criminals- I think it’s funny that the cops can do this. What is really sad it would just be a matter of adjusting privacy settings and the cops couldn’t access it, but as long as it is set for public it is fair game. Over sharing culture at its most useful, really.
This reminds me of a story heard on the news recently. Apparently there is a form of super lice that is making the rounds and helped being spread because of selfies. People lean in tight, brush heads, and viola! Lice transfer.
Re lino- The only thing that comes to mind would be linoleum flooring. Think that’s what’s in our kitchen, actually. The stuff that is kind of like a heavy plastic that just rolled onto floors but could be printed to look like whatever – tiles, wood, etc. I don’t think it’s really used over here anymore.
Re home solutions books- they tend to be hit or miss. The ones I’ve seen read like someone went to all their old relatives and asked how they used to clean this or that back in the day. I think some of the products that used to work for certain tasks had their formulas changed and only do okay jobs now.
Re smartphones- after having mine for a few months, it has definitely become a love/hate affair. As a phone, it is too big, but when using it for web surfing, it’s a good size, most mobile sites are sized well for it where things aren’t too big or small, the screen size works so when you try to click on something you normally get what you’re going for on the first try. The size is also a plus for the few apps I use on it. As a music player it isn’t any great shakes. I still prefer the iPod video I have from ’06 for music playing, or at least for having easy access to my collection. For the best music experience it is difficult to beat vinyl or CD, depending on what you’re listening to.
Re Gina Rinehart- the woman really has no clue, does she? I’m convinced becoming a millionaire (or more) has more to do with being in the right place at the right time over hard work and desire. (The only exception being is lottery, which is just pure dumb luck.) A person can work as hard as possible, but if the demand isn’t there, or if people don’t have the money to spend on the product, you aren’t going to be a millionaire. Something like mining rights is even more being in the right place at the right time. I could own land that has a huge coal deposit on it, and prior to the industrial revolution, it wouldn’t be worth much. During the height of the Industrial Revolution, the family would have made a fortune, and even now be doing decent. It is also a matter of getting the right people to back you and making sure you own your thing. If you have a good idea, but can’t get backing, you have no shot of becoming a millionaire; if you have a backer that can play the game better, you stand being screwed over. As far as I can tell the best chances a person has anymore for becoming a millionaire is being able to play the stock markets well, and primarily doing your own trading so you aren’t paying some broker a bunch of fees or percentages.
Re tvs per household- I really don’t know how they could come to a good number for this. If you only look at tvs purchased that year, you miss out on the millions that didn’t buy one that year, but still have one or more in the house. If tvs are purchased for a business it isn’t always obvious, especially if it is a small business and they only buy one, say for their lobby, on a personal credit card. Even sometimes if they’re purchased for a larger business it can show up as personal. I know several years ago my dad bought 3 or 4 tvs for the place he works on his personal card and then had the place reimburse him, so that didn’t look like a business purchase, because yes there are a lot of US households with multiple tvs.
I AM using Nielsen’s numbers. I used the reported numbers I found to come up with the number of people without a tv and the percentage of the population with Nielsen boxes. Yes, I would welcome more people having input as to what shows get renewed and what gets axed. The different channels over here are always happy to claim we have the number one show in this slot, or the best whatever, and x number of millions of people tuned into see this show. No, I’m sorry when you’re polling 50,000 people out of 296.8 million, I have a hard time believing any claim that says millions are watching, or sorry we’re cancelling because Nielsen says under a million are watching. Start polling a real representative portion of the population and then those millions claims are more believable. Pretty much anyone who has enjoyed a show with a plot and not just “reality” shows complains about Nielsen and how outdated it is, so it isn’t just a small group. There are shows that have been cancelled that I didn’t understand the appeal of at all, but it was clear from an online fan presence that there were a lot of people that did like it.
Re WSJ article ‘Comcast Seeks to Harness Trove of TV Data’- They are collecting the data anyway, then this is what needs to be used to figure out real viewing figures. It may be only one company, but it is around 12 million people spread out over the whole US. Only about 4% of tv viewers, but way better than Nielsen’s current less than 2 hundredths of a percent!
TV networks also are interested in using data to evaluate their programming--to assess, for instance, whether a show with a small audience is worth keeping on the air because it has an avid group of return viewers.
Steve Hasker, Nielsen's global president, plays down the competitive threat set-top box data poses to Nielsen. "We think it has a role in stabilizing the ratings, but only...when used in combination with panel information" like Nielsen's, which provides key demographic insights, such as viewers' age and gender, he said.
In recent months, Comcast rebuffed an offer from TV-ratings specialist Nielsen, which was willing to pay roughly $100 million for an exclusive license to the data[…]
Re Scots deep frying everything- that sounds like the South over here. Pickles, Twinkies, candy bars, ice cream. Think of something that is already grossly unhealthy and someone will deep fry for extra artery clogging goodness. The Texas State Fair apparently holds a competition for most creative deep fried food, and is one of the largest strange fry places in the US. Here are some of their past entries.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/31488/25-deep-fried-foods-texas-state-fair
(This originally came up okay for me and then went wonky, so don’t know if it will work.)
re Oasis- they had some releases over here, mainly in the 90s from what I remember. “Wonderwall” is the only one that comes immediately to mind.
Re supermarket brands- my issue with these brands is they always try to claim that they taste just like their name brand counter parts. If the taste-testers didn’t have taste buds maybe. Some do taste better, or are different in a good way, but just lie saying the taste the same, because they really don’t.
Re Facebook- didn’t realize mobile number was now a requirement to get on the site. I keep playing with the idea of getting rid of my account, but I’ve found it necessary to go in and de-tag some of the pics other people have posted and named me in.
In general, though, I don’t understand why everyone seems to demand a mobile number all the time now. Bit pissed as somewhere along the line I must have given my mobile number to someone and now get the scam/telemarketer calls on it. I don’t bother picking up if I don’t recognize the number, but still irritated; the ones to the house are bad enough.
Apple is currently in a fight with the US gov over cracking open an iphone from a terrorist killed in California. Haven’t heard anything new about that in a couple of weeks .
Google has broken itself into at least two different companies, though I’m not clear on where the lines are. Think it is called Alphabet, Inc. is now their parent company. I’m sure there are money and business reasons behind it, but I’ll be d@mned if I understand it.
Re Clarke & Dawe- that was great. The what did Josephine always say when Beethoven proposed – nein – had me groaning, though.
Word Count: 5621
You don't use Pages for writing stuff? Sound's like you're only a little bit pregnant with Apple!
I usually have to work out the length of my posts here by trial and error...usually only one...I post something, it doesn't go up because of the word limit, and I just see how much of my post is up to see where to cut the bit that doesn't get up and then post that in reply once I manage to post the first attempt up, with the excess baggage trimmed.
I have heard that many companies etc. are now refusing to allow Flash to function, as it is so vulnerable to malicious intentions. Then again, the other day I did read something about Adobe bringing out something new and changing the name of the product, so it will be interesting if that keeps their product going or not. Did you work out why Tou Yube wasn't working for you?
With your parents' old Mac...won't browsing work with just a browser update or a new browser (as opposed to them getting a new Mac...or are you the one thinking of getting a new Mac?)? The latest Firefox, say? Isn't Safari pretty unloved by most websites anyway, so accessing them with it could be problematic? Since teaching your dad something new in tech isn't worth the hassle, have you thought of upgrading or replacing your father? I think you can get a good deal right now on Chinese fathers! I also get annoyed when downloands have a problem at the end and you have to do it again. E.g. the download is going really slowly, you go away briefly and it's all done! Then you try and install it and it's a fail...do it again. Multiple times, sometimes. Not sure what that is all about.
As for Windows once again dominating the scene...I dunno about that...apparently desktops aren't where it's at anymore, and the products which are where it's at don't run Windows...it will be more likely Android, which is Gooble's. The March 2016 edition of APC magazine (www.apcmag.com) I've got mentions in the editorial that Microsoft had a goal of one billion devices running Windows 10 (by the end of July this year?) but had only reached two hundred million installations before the time of publication (and Microsoft is giving away Windows 10 for free).
I've already forgotten what the X-key logging thing is about...not sure if I mentioned that or you...I'll assume that it's something that I may have mentioned before...Windows 10 beta release key logging in order to 'troubleshoot' before it got released.
More than once I've had various sites ask me for my phone number. If they insist, I don't bother with the site anymore, but some of them have a “skip” this icon, or “next time” (something like that) option...and so long as I can indefinitely avoid giving these US MNCs my phone number, I will. Yahoo should allow you to skip it, I think. It also aggravates me that Gloogle owns a lot of sites which you may have an account with, like Too Yoob. Australia currently has (but looks like ditching) laws which prohibits companies from owning a newspaper and tv station or radio station in the same market. Even though something like a site for music videos (amongst other things) isn't as important as news, it would be desirable from my point of view that Gerbil was blocked from owning everything you might want to use on the internet...but, stable door...horse….What's that about being logged into YT and Guhble pages? The Gewble page shows you as being logged in to Gobble?
With Yew Tewb ads...I have heard that there are extensions or add-ons (whatever the right one is!) which block these. Not sure how good Safari is with those, if you use it. Safari good with such things? Apparently Firefox and Gowble's Chrome browser are good for these. The March edition of APC magazine says that Global paid Apple one billion dollars to remain iOS's default search engine. What bugs me the most about Yuh Tuhb is that they seem to skimp on the sound quality for the official site videos...and you can record music on tv which has good sound quality...don't really get that...be alright if they had good sound quality but reduced max resolution to 720p, which is what I think is pretty much standard (in Australia at least)...so you wouldn't be skimping by using the website...it would match what you can already get on free to air tv. Maybe they could police uploads which were of higher visual quality and not official. Just a thought. Fortunately I haven't had YT shove an ad in the middle of a music clip...can't believe that that happens! Maybe it's a region thing? Or maybe I just don't listen to songs which are long enough? How long are the songs which get these ads?
With YT suggesting you buy make up and drink booze...maybe it's trying to get you laid? Have heard about data mining being able to work out if women are pregnant, just based on their shopping...even before the woman may be aware of it, from memory! I don't have those supermarket loyalty cards and they're pretty much designed to data mine As for YT figuring out your age and gender...really? Don't you basically tell them when you sign up? Or maybe you told one of G's services and now it knows? 'Make stuff up' is my motto in these regards...but now I'm making notes of what I tell them in case I need to recover access to an account due to a forgotten password or something.
Password book? There are some software products which generate passwords, I think, and store them and login for you. One of them recently apparently was vulnerable to hackers...not sure if it was Kee Pass...in any case, presumably your government's agencies have back doors to those commercial/free ones in any case. Can't find a brief item on this I thought was in one of the magazines I have...just searched this topic and I got a hit...but from last year...LastPass was hacked in June 2015. Not sure if that is the one that I read about in the last few months or whether it's a new breach from a different company. “Interestingly”, was reading in TechLife Australia magazine (April 2016) that a server promulgating a banking trojan (Dridex) was hacked to spread the free Avira antivirus programme.
With FarceBook and stupid criminals...wondering if I've heard of cases of criminals taunting police with their posts and getting caught because they're not savvy enough to do like you suggest and adjust their privacy settings. Apparently a lot of modern cameras now automatically include information about your location when you take a photo...you have to switch that off...e.g. if you post that on FB, I think that that data is discoverable...possibly...not tech-head.
Not heard of that super lice story...have heard of a craze for dangerous selfies...hey, here's me standing in front of a grizzly bear...I should be alright, right? Noticed a story in The Age (14/004/2016) about bedbugs evolving harder shells because it makes them more resistant to the chemicals that we try and kill them with. With home solutions books...well, when I've listened to the radio, the guests that I've heard speak about home solutions give such lo-tech suggestions that there's no question of the formula being changed and thus being less effective...but maybe that's different to other home solutions books which mention commercial products...but I could be wrong.
With your smartphone (Apple?), is it a standard size one? I did read an article recently about how Apple introduced a new smaller and cheaper phone...from memory, about the size of the old 5s. Apparently many people don't like the bigger new models...both of them. If the 5s was the one which was meant to be smarter and cheaper than the other current models at the time, the new equivalent to it is much smarter and cheaper than it. Not sure if that article would interest you or not...but I can't find it...thought it was in the Green Guide tv guide supplement but it looks like I was mistaken. Add in: found the article, Herald Sun, 23/03/2016, Rod Chester, “Apple sees a big future in remodelling past success”...unfortunately it's behind a paywall! He was talking about Apple's “mistake” in 2013 of releasing the iPhone 5C as a cheaper option but with tech a generation old...cf. now, iPhone SE which is cheaper than the 5C was but with the same tech as current iPhone 6s.
What's that about detagging your pics on FaceBrook? Your pics have tags which others can take advantage of in order to name you in them? Have heard that smart phones now come with geolocation the default setting, so if you post a picture to social media, it already includes data on your location which anyone analysing your posted picture can use to locate you...a bit silly if this capability is default on phones and social media. Even though I don't think I've heard the following thought mentioned in relation to this, I do think that your security organisations would be quite keen to have all social media users' phone numbers available to them...so, whether they know it or not, social media sites demanding that information from users would be quite useful to those US security organisations. Social media sites also claim that giving them that information is for “your security”...nah...I think that it's just for their/US security organisations' benefit.
Apple's fight with US government over cracking iPhone...the little that I was barely aware of made me not worry about that too much, thinking that it was just a question of one phone being hacked to get the info. Now I get the impression that the idea was to have the entire body of users' phones vulnerable by what they demanded, not just the person in question's phone. Also saw a headline or something along the lines that the data on the phone wouldn't be that important anyway to US authorities...making it seem likely to me that the real reason for the 'request' is to have the ability to crack anyone's iPhone, anytime. Last I heard, the US authorities have the ability to access the suspect's iPhone...via a 3rd party...some article or something mentioned that this meant that Apple's security wasn't that secure in that case.
What little I've read on Goodle makes me think that its ultimate parent company is now called Alphabet...maybe they think that the name Gobble is a bit on the nose to some people, so they're just making it harder to keep tabs on it in the news or something? One thing that does bug me...pretty much every site that you try to connect to, if you look at the toolbar on the bottom of your bottom browser, which displays what sites are picking up on the fact that you're trying to access the site that you want, Goonle is invariably in the loop. Eff em.
There was an excellent segment on the local satirical programme The Weekly this week (at the time of writing this bit) on Big Data...some really disturbing information about the corruption and privacy concerns raised by these companies...not sure if you can access this overseas although it is on YT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iRQnghpHp0
If you could watch that, it was interesting how the CIA tech specialist was praising those fitness bands then he just bit his tongue and changed the subject...that's the kind of stuff I have in mind when I say that corporations don't do things for “your convenience”...it's for their purposes.
I was reading a Linux magazine where one letter to the editor was taking such magazines to task over their sniping of Microsoft...they then listed all the similar actions that Apple was taking...saying that they were just as bad, in any case. Probably obvious, when you think about, but, like they said, it's fashionable to criticise Microsoft and Apple is, well, fashionable.
With music on phones...I can't remember what product it was, but one of these new smartphones is apparently a better quality source of sound...not sure if that's to do with a DAC or something...but in any case, I think you could probably buy a DAC which would improve the sound quality of any phone...so long as the files are of a high enough resolution. As far as the best quality sound coming from vinyl or cd...I forget what the labels are, but there are higher quality sound sources than these. One I do remember is SACD...have read how SACD players make even CDs sound better. I'd say that SACD is probably no longer a thing...but I could be wrong on that. A while back I mentioned Oppo BluRay players (or maybe Oppo phones...I forget)...their BluRays apparently use an excellent DAC so that would make CDs sound better too, no doubt. Did hear something about some sort of audio only BluRay format for even better sound quality music. There's also digital downloads...you can get formats which have an even higher sound quality than SACD. Vaguely remember reading some articles on how after a certain point, higher resolution music is pretty much pointless, as we can't hear the difference! Might even be that cd quality was that limit! I dunno. Personally, I find CD sound quality to be variable...have read articles which attributes this to early production standards not being so good as the technology was new. Every now and again I'd listen to a cd which blew me away with its sound quality...even old titles...I thought that the cd of Elvis Presley's “Flaming star” sounded great, even though I'm not sure it was from an era where stereo was being properly done. That was a nostalgia buy...it was at home as a kid...probably my mum's...big fan.
Just browsed a PC mag I recently bought...reminded of a recent story about people being told to set their iPhone's date to 01/01/1970...if you do that, you end up bricking your phone! They don't tell you that though. The same magazine (Tech Life Australia, April 2016) mentions that Siri and Cortana (and Dragon) have difficulty deciphering thick accents...so, makes me think that maybe this will change how people talk? Kind of like the printing press, perhaps? Apparently some people also have to fake an American accent to be understood! Cited sources for those are Tom Dart of The Guardian for the first, and Lars Hinrich at Texas Uni for the second. Another story in the same section mentions that iOS9 will brick iPhones if it's repaired outside of Apple stores. Apple cites “security” reasons for doing this. It bugs me that the “new and improved” Opera browser – which I occasionally use – doesn't let you delete G from the options. Have heard that one of the guys behind Opera who left is working on an alternative to Opera which is more like what Opera used to be like in that regard...might be worth keeping an eye on, for me at least...just remembered what it was called...Vivaldi.
Becoming a millionaire...not sure that people who sat on land which had minerals on it were the ones to make a fortune...I think Western governments can pretty much appropriate the land to mining interests...and I doubt that our natives made much from sitting on resource rich land! Did hear of a local wannabe again politician recently who owned a farm on resource rich land...it was compulsorily acquired but, yes, he did make a fortune ($5m?). His opponent was arguing he was a hypocrite for fighting against such acquisitions because he sold out...but he doesn't mention the whole compulsory acquisition bit. Maybe property is a better way to become a millionaire than the stock market? Maybe that's more the case in Australia...governments now provide handouts to investors… a real vote winner...not sure if the US has something called (or equivalent to) “negative gearing”...it basically allows people to buy a house and deduct losses against their tax due...makes it harder for first home buyers to crack the market...it's a political football here now. It also rewards investments which lose money.
TV purchases...I forget what this with regard to...but the difficulty you mention in working out numbers reminds me of Gruen, I think...they may have mentioned that the number of Star Wars merchandise sold back in the day couldn't be counted...which seems odd to me...manufacturers don't know how many Lube Skywalker and Ham Yoyo dolls they sold? I still remember those names from that Mad Star Wars parody! Pretty sure they didn't mess with “Skywalker”...then there was Bar Stool, Creepio, Dart Zader or something. Not sure how long ago I saw a Mad magazine recycling that old parody in it...must be a classic or something! Anyway, it seems to me a problem if companies can't tell the tax man how much of a product they manufactured...seems like a tax dodge to me! “No Mr. Taxman, we only sold a few hundred Luke Skywalker figurines...trust us!”.
So how many people SHOULD be surveyed to get a believable audience number in your view? Wildly guessing, I'd say <1% would be fine, but what would I know? Call it 0.5%...for Australia that equates to about 120,000 and for the US about 1,600,000...I don't even remember what numbers we came up with before for these numbers, re being higher or lower than them (I'll go with your figure of 50,000 for the U.S. which you mentioned just below the part of your reply that I am currently responding to)...the question for me is: how representative are those surveyed? I suppose I could round those numbers down to 100,000 for Australia and 1,000,000 at the low end for the U.S.# You?
# Actually, I'll wildly guess here...won't even bother looking to see if I've looked up actual numbers from my previous posts...for Australia, most of our population is in a handful of cities...here's where I'm guessing...I'd say that maybe a couple of thousand in those cities is adequate representation, so long as it is truly representative, not skewed towards people who mostly watch commercial tv. Of course, you'd want the biggest provincial cities covered...say a few hundred sampled per city, and similar for other big cities and towns, with fewer being sampled, of course. Not looked into it, but just guessing maybe two dozen population centres would be adequate for this, as well as some rural centres...representative of our actual population distribution. Guessing, again, maybe that equates to about a total sample size of around 15,000 households...probably at a minimum. That's much less than my guesstimate in the previous paragraph. For the U.S., I'd say that you have much more by way of really big cities and big provinces and just overall more cities of a size similar to the less populous of our capital cities...so, I'd say that you'd need a bigger sample size per big city...guessing, 4,000-5,000 for those and similar increases over my guesstimates for other Australian population centres...multiple that by the number of population centres and that would be my sample size for the U.S….guessing that's a few dozen population centres multiplied by some sort of average population size sample...say 40 x 2,000? Generously rounding up, that's about 100,000 households surveyed...what do you think? Is that better or worse than my previous suggestion? Not sure how either compares with what we've posted before...if my sample sizes are worse than current, then maybe my suggestion for the number of population centres surveyed is better? Already forgotten this info in any case. Hmm...one other idea...if my next guesstimate for Australia was 15,000, then pro-rata you'd multiply that by the number of times America's population is bigger than Australia's, perhaps? That's x13? Therefore a U.S. sample size of roughly 200,000 households. Anyway, it's good that I've got such 'firm' views on these numbers (!)...presumably the ratings companies have had statisticians verify that they're sampling enough/representative enough households, right? I'll go with them, if that's the case. If.
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
In any case, I'm pretty sure that at least as far as pay tv and streaming tv goes, you get actual viewer numbers and not a projected number...and maybe it will be possible some time (now?) to get actual viewer numbers without being limited to the pay to view options above. Since you mentioned cancelled shows which caused an outcry...sometimes this can be a vocal minority though, right? If you're a user of a particular network's website, or a tv show's forum, it makes sense that you're going to hear a lot of noise there! i.e. not a representative sample.
As for very devoted sci-fi fans making a show a stayer on tv due to their buying merch...I doubt that helps them as far as the broadcasters are concerned as I'm not sure if they directly benefit from merch...but I could be wrong...e.g. that Marvel comics based tv show, Agents Of SHIELD (?), the merch money would go to Marvel, not the broadcaster, you'd think. With people who promise to never watch a channel again because of their favourite show being cancelled...it makes me wonder if they're just yapping...their bark is worse than their bite...and they'll eventually come around...and do it all over again when their next favourite show is cancelled. What's the programme you only occasionally watch? I have seen it joked in the media over here that shows like Days Of Our Lives are such that you can skip a countless number of episodes yet quickly get up to speed with things when you tune back in!
You mention being more concise about what tv shows you watch...I wish recorders were smarter...or at least that EPGs were more informative...I'm sick of my recorder capturing every instance of a tv show, which might be different seasons on different channels (of the same network) including repeats of current seasons...just a massive PITA. An option to just record New episodes, or episodes from such and such a season onwards. And it really annoys me that the government funded networks here are spraying certain shows all over the place...it just fills my hard drive with content that I don't want...I'm nostalgic for the old days when they only showed a programme once a week and that was it.
With the Xbone being banned by the military for “listening”...reminds me of Sony's marketing claiming that their PS3, I think, was used by the military or banned by the military because of its “power” or something. Whatever! Probably bs in any case. Sony did install a rootkit on PS3 in any case...this is what criminals download onto PCs in order to steal your data. Hmm.
With smart tvs etc...when I used my tablet, I made a point of covering up the cameras with tape...just because I'd heard it was quite easy to hack that type of input. Smart tvs are probably a Godsend for the U.S. spy agencies in any case. There have also been stories about in principle demonstrations to the media that such IoT (internet of things) devices can be hacked...one concerned a 'hacker” hacking into a 'smart' car a journalist was driving...they disabled it or something. It all sounds a bit dodgy to me...doubt if it's being pushed because it's good for the consumer...probably suits data miners more and the security agencies. Did read something the other day, I think (or maybe I heard this on the radio) that 4k tvs might not be worth buying because 8k is apparently not too far away...so best to hold off if you're 1080p is still good for some years yet.
Since you mentioned Walker, Texas Ranger, I was watching a “new” episode of Mythbusters the other week (“new” because it seemed to disappear from the supposedly ethnic network which is funded by the government...don't know if I've missed it because they've not shown it or because they've moved it around the schedule) and they covered A-Team myths...never watched that show...but interesting to learn that the baddies never died in that show! Except for that one time.
Do you get voice-over promos during the end credits of shows? Probably mentioned this before with a silly promo by a female voice at the end of dramatic shows like Breaking Bad...and this was on the supposedly commercial free, government funded national broadcaster! Just breaks the ambience of what you've finished viewing. In any case, I can't say that I find any promo better than none...then again it is good to catch a promo for a returning show...which I invariably miss anyway, especially if it's on commercial tv. Wanted to watch the new X-Files...but the EPG and tv guides were inaccurate, so I missed the first episode, I'm sure...so will probably have to get it on disc, which sucks...and doesn't…no ads, better picture quality etc...just have to find it a good price.
#showname...I'm currently playing XCOM:EW with the volume turned off and listening to the radio...I can't concentrate on both, so usually the content on the radio suffers...so I might have to listen to a repeat of the radio show to take it in. Same with Tweets on tv...I'll have to timeshift to read the Tweets if I'm listening to the chat...shows like Q&A or the satirical The Chaser programmes. It seems that research shows that no, you can't actually multi-task...you might think that you can, but if you're driving, you'll be lucky not to crash.
Another recentish episode of Mythbusters I saw demonstrated the truth of the research which shows that you really can't multi-task driving and talking on your mobile phone...whether hands free or not...this episode here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%282015_season%29#Episode_232_.E2.80.93_.22Dangerous_Driving.22
Only one person, at least, drove to an example standard in the two tests that they ran...i.e. maybe the same person passed both tests or maybe two people passed one each...not sure.
There's apparently a hit Australian tv show which is about watching people watching tv shows and listening to their comments about...”Gogglebox”?...just Wikid it, yep, originally a British show too with a US version. Don't remember...not sure if it's on FTA either. Apparently it's meant to be good...doubt I'd watch it...might if it was Roy & H.G. doing it...those comedians who commentated during the Olympics...showed you their YTs in the past. Think there was similar concept by UK comedian Russell (?) Brand...”Ponderland”...maybe it was part of his schtick...didn't stick with that show because it pretty ordinary...like a not particularly funny relative giving a running commentary at your house about what's on tv...if a “comedian” can't make it funny, not sure how the average punter will. Think there's another U.K. show which has that sort of element to it...forget what it's called though.
I can't comment re possible conflict between Chinese in Australia and natives...I just know that the Chinese did come here for the gold rush late in the 19th century, I think...they were subject to racist violence etc...but you may be right, for all I know...but maybe it would be more probable that the conflict was between the natives and closer Asian neighbours...but I'm just guessing there. I think that there was a story in The Age here some weeks back back about a DNA link between our Aborigines and South Americans…maybe I'm wrong about how old that newspaper article was! Anyway, here's a more provocatively titled article on this topic...not sure how different to The Age article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3170959/Were-Aborigines-AMERICANS-Native-tribes-Amazon-closely-related-indigenous-Australians.html
There was a really intersting story on Catalyst recently about genetic diversity...we're pretty much inbreds, it seems! We have more in common with the Chinese, genetically, than we do with some African tribes. Those African tribes can be way more genetically diverse too, even amongst neighbouring tribes. Interesting consequences re pharma research, too.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4411212.htm
Cloud definition...think I've read that Amazon is big in this field...lots of companies outsourcing their data storage to them...can't remember if I've read of them being hacked or whatever.
Pop culture references...I watched Zoolander 2 recently...the reviews mentioned the Justin Bieber scene as being a highlight...I just don't care enough about Bieber to be swept away by that scene...just left me indifferent...if I was a hater, then, sure, maybe.
Great vowel shift...the printing press apparently standardised language, with RP being privileged as the default variety. Can't say whether or not it was in every case the most intuitive variety as far as spelling went. Apparently babies lose a lot of phonemes as they learn their language...i.e. their babble early on has a lot of sounds that they lose as they learn their language. More than the 12 that were lost during the GVS, I'd guess (maybe if you linked to what particular graph from Wikipedia you were referring to re us losing 12 phonemes since Middle Age I could engage with you more on this point). Knight v night...not sure that we've lost phonemes with regards to those words...just that we've dropped still existing ones in pronouncing them in the modern way.
Language learning – the following topic seems to make the serious papers a lot in recent years...high school language classes having native speakers of a language be allowed to study it and be marked against Australian students, who may drop out of the course because their marks suffers. Read this article recently on that:
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/bell-curve-means-uphill-battle-for-students-of-chinese-20160316-gnkggr.html
Seems a pretty stupid practise to me. Not sure if this is Australia wide or just in one state.
Siobahn – wonder if the different spellings are a counterpart of boganism…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan
Urban Dictionary claims that this is an American colonial influence on Australia...I dunno about that. But here's a link to some bogan Australian names...you tell me:
Noticed that a UK newspaper wrote something on this...just glanced at it...I like what they say about bogan clothing and some of the names that they mention.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2751399/Is-baby-BOGAN-The-definitive-list-biggest-bogan-names-Australia.html
Do remember reading about disallowed baby names...from New Zealand or something...stuff like – from memory – Love Apple and Satan or something like that. The New Zealand angle seems to be a zombie story...if you search, you'll get hits from various years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/08/banned-the-world-s-most-ridiculous-baby-names_n_7379492.html
Was listening to the audio commentary (which I rarely do) of an episode of Californication recently...Australian musical comedian Tim Minchin discussed the episode (i.e. the entire episode is just them talking about it) with the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones, who also appears in the series...Tim was saying that the woman who plays Tim's character's wife in the show was a Sydney bogan and she sounds bogan in the show too...which is deliberate on her part. Good special feature...funny at times. Tim was joking how American's are bad at Australian accents (remember my comments about Robin Williams' impression of it?) and that they basically do it by crossing Michael Caine with Crocodile Dundee...Tim's impression of that sounded like Michael Caine for sure! Steve Jones commented that the woman who plays a rock star's widow in the show has a Dick Van Dyke kind of Cockney accent (from a Disney movie...Mary Poppins?). She also did a special feature...she's American...she struck me as having a phoney accent but it wasn't egregiously bad...ball park, maybe. Tim liked her accent though. Add in: Tim also mentioned that his character in the show is meant to be English, but he played him as Australian English...and nobody seemed to notice! I actually thought that he was playing an Australian rock star! Can't say that I noticed the “English” addition to his accent! Maybe Tim's wrong though, as a later episode had someone playing his brother...who also sounded Australian...and mentioned finding a new girlfriend in Australia too.
Went back to that Australian accent blog...was amused by this reader comment:
“Jack Lynch said... My theory is that Australian drunkenness proceeds from their accents. (It's at least as plausible as the converse.)”
Anyway, do you read about English during the Middle Ages for pleasure or something? Weirdly, I seem to be subject to many sponsored links about learning a language (or many!) in a week or some such ridiculous time frame for some reason.
German illness article...don't remember details of it, but possibly they just invented names for things that we never thought to name or didn't realise was a “thing”...perhaps like schadenfreude? That word is on Wikipedia and just glancing at that, there seems to be an ancient Greek equivalent to this.
Monty Python name sketch...did see something about Castle having a really bad episode as far as a Geordie accent goes...saw a YT of the parts on the show...not sure if the actor was actually from the UK...he seemed to be babbling but I could make out more of what he said in late on in the clip. As for how many takes it took Monty Python to do that sketch...guessing a lot! Unless they're very good with words…then again, maybe not...perhaps there was no “right” sequence or name? Hmm...probably wrong there, because the other guy had to repeat the same sequence again, from memory.
Bringing up America's education system in an article on drunken Australian accent...I do remember hearing analysis about how Obama uses rhetorical devices which the ancient Greeks used to teach...interesting stuff...probably articles on this online...lots of fancy words for rhetorical devices that he used...from memory, including ones meaning that the speaker returns to a subject after a while...repetition? Probably something fancier meant, though*. Would the fact that Obama uses these ancient rhetorical devices demonstrate that the American education is superior to Australia's? Or just that education for the privileged is superior to that given to the masses? In other words, is such learning of rhetoric universal or particular? Just glanced at the following article...not sure if I read this years ago in The Age or something like it, concerning Obama's rhetorical devices:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/26/barack-obama-usa1*
> * “anaphora”, going on that article.
As for the article on Australian accents being influenced by alcohol as intended to be satirical...reading some of the exchanges between that linguist blogger and the author, I'd say “no”! Some of the comments in the blog were interesting...about differences between drunken pronunciation and the supposed “examples” of Australian English being influenced by it not being supported by the linguistic evidence. i.e. they're distinct. Can't say that I get your point re non-alcoholic drinks only becoming mainstream recently...wouldn't that 'support' the article's thesis about drunkenness giving rise to our accent?
re Doctor Who writers doing what they want...recently I saw the finale of Dexter...not happy…
If I'd heard that Top Gear had seven presenters, I had forgotten about it. Didn't tv news programmes go overboard with the number of people at the desk some years back? Was watching The Last Leg and they mentioned a stunt that Matt Le Blanc did in England for Top Gear...I'm assuming he's part of the new team (and there's my trademark “make an assumption and then find out that you've already addressed it just after the bit that I was replying to!...and I'll just edit out the bit I wrote about The Last Leg mentioning Matt doing doughnuts!). With the Stig talking...I'm not sure how many different Stigs that they've had but it makes me wonder about that leader board they have for their own circuit...I'm assuming that they don't differentiate the Stigs' times...which doesn't really seem legitimate...but that's just probably me! Back to Le Blanc...what Top Gear races are you talking about? Just btb, when The Panel used to run here, one of the regular panellists was quite scathing about Matt's turn at the Logies (Australia's more commercial version of the Emmys...it's run through TV Week magazine)...she called him “Matt Le Blank”! With what the Classic Top Gear hosts are getting paid with Amazong, I did read, from memory, something about a business analyst or something saying that they knew what they were worth...so, it looks like they'd need a truck to deliver their weekly pay packet.
C-sections...that gut bacteria docu mentioned that babies born this way miss out on receiving their mum's bacteria, which is a bad thing...a study into the consequences of C-secs would be good...I mean, as far as pros and cons for the child go...over a long period of time too...into adulthood. Not sure where your comments re sterile baby guts is coming from...I seem to remember hearing something about urine from adults being sterile...via Bear Grylls? I dunno.
Smarties v M&Ms...Wikipedia has articles on them! Former introduced in 1937, the latter, later (1941). Article for the latter says that they're “similar to and inspired by” the former. Seem to remember reading years ago someone writing about M&Ms and saying something to the effect that that their slogan is underwhelming...like the fact that they don't melt in your hand is all that it has going for them. Haven't eaten either for years...most recently probably ate the M&Ms peanut variety...it's amenable to my eating rituals! With how I eat Smarties...I'd just basically suck one at a time until the colour came off and they were white, then I'd crunch the shell (by having one set vertically between my teeth and trying to get the shell to split cleanly in two...one half just being the shell as the other half had the chocolate stick to it)...a good bite would see the top coating come off in one piece, then I'd just crunch down on that shell, then just suck the chocolate which remained. Reminds me of ice cream...have seen some shops here which sell “cookie dough” ice cream...that's an American flavour invention, isn't it? Never really got me hooked though.
Your deep fried Texas foods article makes me wonder if that is a Scottish influence on the local cuisine there? One of the items reminded me of Elvis Presley's favourite snack...not sure if I've posted on that here before...here's a clip from an Australian tv show...the host now has a UK show, called “The last leg”...where I heard about Matt Le Blanc…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-i5vscprmE
Was trying to find an article in The Age about Australians who are competitive eaters...can't find it at the moment...did come across this article...glanced at it...a bit about mothers' taste in food influencing the unborn via amniotic fluid caught my eye:
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/heston-blumenthal-our-brains-can-be-fooled-into-healthier-eating-20151231-glxoyv
Saw some ads on SBS for a new show featuring that chef as he opens up a restaurant here, apparently. Not sure if I'll watch it...used to watch Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares...but it was very repetitive re problems he faced…e.g. restaurants serving frozen produce, not fresh, as well as problems with hygiene etc.
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
Supermarket brands...not sure if I mentioned that Gruen, I think, mentioned that people associate Aldi's products as “boutique” or something like that...even though they're just their home brands. Think I have heard that some generic brands are identical to the branded product...so they would in fact taste identical to the name brand...but the home brand livery would probably make people think it tasted worse...not sure if I've mentioned here before how in blind taste tests, Coke doesn't taste as good as people think it does...it's only when they see the packaging that people think it tastes better. I'm buying dirt cheap, low sugar soft drinks now...just for the taste of it! Have heard that Australia is now looking to copy (maybe?) the UK's move to tax sugar drinks like soft drinks, in order to fight type 2 diabetes and obesity etd.
Okay, found that article on competitive eaters:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/the-burger-games--how-big-can-they-go-20160223-gn11gk
Personally, I just find that all pretty ridiculous. Even those US style promotions “Eat a 1kg steak in one sitting and it's free!” are equally stupid, and oh so wasteful...don't they know about the starving children in China? Sheesh!
Re Clarke & Dawe “nein” sketch...glad you liked it. Think I mentioned a Spike Milligan sketch in which he asks a German whether he'd like a fag/cigarette and the German says “nein”...Spike retorts something along the lines that he shouldn't be greedy. Anyway, Clarke & Dawe can be very local, even though that specificity would no doubt be a universal characteristic of politicians etc. It's probably a rare case of an act not being as funny on the ABC as they were on commercial TV...I preferred them when they were on commercial tv...although I'm not sure how well their old material would stack up now...but then again, the context of those old sketches would probably have a long forgotten context...then again, universal foibles etc.
Word count: 6,699
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
Re virtual phone number websites- doesn’t sound like a very secure way of doing things. I guess if you were just using it for an initial set up confirmation, or if you were doing it for a recovery and could change the password immediately after it might work. Sounds like a good place for people to trawl through data, though, and steal accounts and passwords. Like someone just sitting at their computer with the page refreshing every couple minutes and when a new message comes though saying ‘click this link to activate account’ or ‘click here to reset password’ could get in there before the person who really owns (or as much as a person can own an online account) it, use the link, and steal the information.
Re Pages- I’ve never bothered to use any of Apple’s version of Microsoft Office programs because there is no crossover. With the Microsoft ones, at least there are versions for Windows computers and Apple computers. Most, maybe all, of the lab computers at uni were Windows, so if I had a large document to print out it was easier to do it with their printers. Plus, I think The Apple Office-type had to be purchased in a separate package when I got my first Mac, and it didn’t make sense to get both Microsoft and Apple Office equivalents when only one was really needed. Pages and whatnot came pre-installed on my newer Mac, but already had the install for Windows Office, so have never seen the need to adjust to Pages. Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to using Pages, but for now Word works. And Word is still dominate program it seems for documents, so eh.
Re parent’s Mac saga- their OS was so old that Firefox wouldn’t do updates for it any more, and Chrome was warning that they were going to stop doing updates for it soon. And yes, in many ways it would be easier to get a Dad that understood tech, or at least listened when trying to teach him about it instead of bitching and cussing and calling the computer names because obviously it is the computer’s fault and not an issue with the website, program, or, most commonly, user error.
So, I finally went ahead and updated their OS. Annoyingly you can’t get an OS disc. It is only available to download, and everything I read warned to do a backup of the computer prior to doing the update because so many people had had issues with it. Heeding the warning, I got an external HD and did a time machine back up. That took about two weeks to complete. Yes, two whole weeks of the computer downloading it’s contents to the external HD. When that was finally done and could start downloading the new OS, I had to get my parents to make an App Store/iTunes account, which my mother hemmed and hawed over – why I still don’t understand. The e-mail used in the accounts is the one used when the computer is initially set up so just needed a password. Finally got one out of my mother and started downloading the OS. That took a couple days. Went to install the new shiny OS and it wasn’t working. Just got to the first screen in and said it had to restart for something. Tried to start in safe mode, recovery mode, start from the backup – nothing worked. Took it in to an Apple store couple days later. Turns out the #@$% $@%$ *&(*(&$^^ %# @#^ hard drive had decided to commit suicide. And since the computer was older (the diagnostics guy actually called it vintage) they didn’t think they could do anything on it. A HD replacement would be possible with that model, but they didn’t do it, or it was out of warranty so it would cost a lot.
Went home, did some cussing, wondered if there was some Mac conspiracy about standard HD’s dying in 6 years (since that was what happened with my original Mac laptop), and started doing research. Dad was probably hoping it would stay dead so he could get a Windows; Mom hoping something could be done so could keep a Mac. (I was also hoping to keep the Mac as I didn’t want to have to deal with all the sh!t that come with a Windows when I haven’t had any experience with one in 10 odd years.) Was able to find a SSD that could be dropped into their computer, found out how absurdly simple it is to install in the older macs, and installed it. Then had to go back to the Mac store so that their techs could put the original OS on the new hard drive because I couldn’t put the new OS on straight. Also had them check the back up drive, which thankfully was clear of corrupted files. So on to the new SSD went the old files, again a day or two. Get to start the new OS download – another week goes by. FINALLY! Finally! Can do the install. This time around it goes quick and smoothly. Don’t think it even took an hour. Thankfully the computer has been working ever since.
Now I’m hoping the SSD holds for a good long while, and that the next OS update goes smoother. The only way I could see it going worse is if the computer dies completely. Dad vows to never get a Mac again. Also likes to make a claim that Windows is so much cheaper, but I went online and started building a Dell laptop, and there wasn’t much a price difference between them and the Macs. Tried looking at the Samsungs, but you couldn’t find any place where you could configure those yourself – it was just take what the factory gives you. Toshiba had some pretty cheap ones, but they didn’t look well made and the insides were not comparable to the others.
Re downloads messing up- I think what happens a lot of the times when a downloaded program messes up at the end of its installation, there were files that did not download correctly. I’m guessing it is because too many people were on the server it was coming from or the connection between the downloader and the server interrupted at some point.
Re Windows vs Android domination- for some reason I thought Android was a Microsoft thing that Google had outsourced or something. Hadn’t realized it was its own thing. Seems like it is already turning into the dominant OS. Found it on my first search, and can’t get the box to pop up again, but it said as of 2015, Android OS was installed on more devices than Mac, iOS, and Windows combined. Also seems like it has several vulnerabilities, though. I have heard that some of the tablets, like the Samsung lines, that use Android work better than iPads.
Re Yahoo and phone numbers- my old Yahoo acct, the one that I had before texting and smart phones were a thing, occasionally asks me for one, but I can skip it. When I went to make the new account, it wouldn’t let me complete the registration without giving them a phone number. If you click continue without giving a number it underlines the section and says ‘This is required’ underneath it. Wonder what would happen if you gave them a landline number instead? Generally the beginning numbers are different, though, so it would probably notice and not let it go through.
Re Google and YT accts- Prior to Google buying YT, I had a YT acct, which was and still is connected back to a Yahoo email. When Google bought YT, they attached some kind of Google account to the old YT account. At the time I didn’t care because I had no intention of ever making a Google email, circle, other google social media, etc. Fast forward several years and I found myself needing a new email account. Yahoo at this point requires a damn phone number, so I went to Google. Now I cannot be logged into my Google email acct at the same time I’m logged into my YT acct. If I log into my google email, it automatically kicks me out of my YT acct. When I log into my YT acct, it automatically logs me out of the Google email account. It makes no sense to me as to why this happens, and frankly pisses me off that it does. The google account is a more professional acct, whereas the YT acct is just personal and is used for playlists of favourite songs. I’ll spare you another round of ranting about the stupidity of the big web companies trying to forcibly tie every acct together. The acct tying needs to be an OPTION, not a requirement.
Frankly I’m surprised this hasn’t resulted in someone getting into some kind of trouble at work, and then the employee trying to sue one of the big web companies over it. As much as I hate the American sue happy culture, at least that might get the companies to start giving some control back to the people. And make it obvious instead of hiding the privacy and connection settings under some obscure menu that it takes a manual to find, and then another manual to set them to a good privacy setting.
Re YT ads- Don’t use Safari much any more. Use it on iPhone just because I’ve never bothered to download one of the other browsers, but on the computer use Firefox pretty much exclusively. Don’t download many add-ons or extensions, mainly because I’m never sure of what ones I can trust.
The vids that get ads in the middle usually aren’t songs. They are either episodes of something that I’m watching on YT or just one with people talking about a subject. Did have a couple music vids that were around 45 to 60 minutes long, but those were uploads of entire soundtracks. Think the two of the vids had just the pop up ads that appear at the bottom of the vid, but one had the video ads that cut in.
I think the shortest vid I ever had the vid ads cut into was like 14 minutes, and it cut in around the 7 minute mark. There have been some vids that I’ve been interested in, but when the vid loaded and there were a bunch of ad markers I just left. If I’m not mistaken the owner of the channel can choose to do ads or not, though since the channel owner gets a small kick back from the ads I understand why they do it. However, I wish they would let the vid uploader determine where the ads went, then at least you wouldn’t get people cut off mid word, or ads in the middle of an argument, etc. There would most likely need to be a rule about not having all the ads at the beginning or end of the vid, but the current system just doesn’t work.
It is election year over here, and now I’m getting political ads
Re personal info to websites- when I was younger I used to make up my birthday all the time, mainly because I was under 18 and didn’t want to deal with the restrictions. Most websites don’t require you to give gender when signing up, it’s just an option, one of which I usually don’t fill in. I can’t remember now the last time I made any sort of web acct. Was probably the Google email.
Re Password software- hacking possibilities are why I don’t use them. It wasn’t until a couple years ago I even started keeping the book, but there were websites that I had always just stay logged into, and on the odd occasion I had to input it, I was always having to change it. With the book I was able to keep just one, and in today’s world a physical book seems safer.
Re iphone- I have the large one. When it has to be replaced, hopefully several years from now, I’m getting a smaller one. Like I said, the current one is good for web use, but otherwise it’s just too big.
Re photo tagging- on Facebook, when it detects a face, it gives the option to name the people. Worse, when you mouse over the faces, boxes appear around each face and highlights the name associated with it. There is an option to go in after someone has tagged you in the photo and take your name off of it. Can’t remember if you can turn something on that prevents people from tagging you completely. Last time I was on there I think there was something were you had to approve each tag. I’m not sure about the process of tagging on someone else’s photo, though. I think I remember Facebook saying that was going to be a thing years ago.
With smartphones, there is an option to tag every photo it takes with the location data from the phone, but that was easy to turn off.
Re government hacking iPhone- supposedly the FBI just wanted to hack that one phone. Apple was against doing it because they claimed it would mean giving a way into all iPhones. In the end it didn’t matter and someone else did it for the FBI. Not sure if the claim was ever validated, but heard the Israelis were the ones to do it.
One thing that does bug me...pretty much every site that you try to connect to, if you look at the toolbar on the bottom of your bottom browser, which displays what sites are picking up on the fact that you're trying to access the site that you want, Goonle is invariably in the loop.
Re show cancellation outcry- I don’t follow any particular show forum or anything like that – have had too many bad experiences – but tend to get it from general internet.
I think the show that I was alluding to about occasionally watching was NCIS. There is a new show, Brain Dead, on the channel that aired NCIS that I’m watching, but if internet comments are anything to go by, the show is doomed. Bit pissed as it is one of those shows that had to get through a lot of exposition in the pilot to get the show underway. The second ep was better. With most shows I think it takes about 5 eps to really get a feel for the show. The pilot is usually not to the same quality as everything else, for money reasons and uncertain casting usually, and sometimes it can take the cast a few eps to fully find their characters.
Re Days of Our Lives- with ANY soap opera a person could see one ep a week and pretty much be caught up. My mom watches a couple of them, well, she DVRs them, and the one is backlogged about a month. I swear one day on a soap is equivalent to 1 to 2 weeks in real world. Want evidence? Just watch any string of eps that have holidays on them. The American Independence Day is July 4th, and I swear on one of her soaps it was Independence Day for the whole month of July. There are some animes that are like that, too. Ones like the Dragon Ball franchises, except the fights go on for several eps. Characters find each other, have a bunch of dialogue, throw some punches, more dialogue, some punches, etc for like 7 eps until someone finally wins. And no, I’ve never been a fan or really watched any of the Dragon Ball franchise. When I was younger DBZ was in the middle of the anime block that I watched and I watched shows on either side of it. As such I tended to see enough bits and pieces. There was one anime I did watch and one of the reasons I gave up on it was a similar format where encounters were dragged on through several eps that I felt could be much shorter and the show wouldn’t lose any of its essence.
The Australian tv experience is clearly very different from the US one. Our DVR has the option to record only the first time an ep is aired, or anytime an ep of that particular show is aired on any channel – which I tried doing when I first got into Top Gear and it didn’t pick up like half of the airings. Eventually just did it manually. Over here there isn’t much question as to when shows begin and end, either. If a show says it is going to start at 9, then at 9 a commercial is likely playing and the show comes on in a minute or two, and is over with enough time for commercials to play before the next show comes on as scheduled. With our free channels, the only one that runs reruns anymore is CBS, and that is really only their bigger shows, like Big Bang Theory, NCIS, some of the comedies I think. Their website is the worst, though. Most of their shows are locked behind a membership. Last time I was on there only two eps per show available for free, and it took over a week before the ep was uploaded for free to view, so if someone was trying to watch that way, they’d never actually be caught up to watch on tv until it hit the point of year where they do reruns every other week. It used to be that every free channel used to have reruns. They would do the initial run of the show’s season, with a break usually at the end of November for Thanksgiving week, and around Christmas. The season would last around 20 eps, then during the summer the season would be rerun from start to finish. Then the model was switched to always having new content on. The other free to air channels don’t have reruns. When a season for one show gets done, they just put on another show.
Then there is one channel that is publically funded called PBS. They show several British shows they import, but the shows tend to be cut for time and content. The channel also isn’t the most reliable when it comes to running shows. They do a lot of fundraising drives that go on for several weeks at a time, and during that time they tend to run nothing else. They did have the first rights to Downton Abbey, and seemed to run that with reliability, or at least I’m assuming they did since I don’t remember hearing people complaining about the show getting pushed around. They have the first rights to Sherlock as well, but given that is only 3 eps every couple of years it would be pretty damned hard to screw that up. Don’t know if they even have streaming on their site or not.
Re promos during credits- we get a combination of commercials and it depends on the channel and show as to if it gets a promo. Shows that aren’t on their last season are more likely to get individual ep promos. A show that I was watching just had its last season. For the whole season it was just a general promo reminding viewers that the show would be on next week. Until the final couple eps, where “There’s only X episodes left” was added. Most shows do individual promos for next week’s ep. There was one channel, Starz that is a premium channel, that at one time would let the credits play without any interference, but apparently some exec decided they didn’t like that, and now the promo for the next ep is played. They’re good at keeping the mood right, usually. It is a problem though when it is the last ep in a series/season, and the promo they play is for the show that is taking the time slot the following week.
Re driving while distracted- in the summary you linked to it said that they had to perform tasks that use parts of the brain different from that which would be used in normal conversation. That doesn’t make sense. Talking on the phone is just a normal conversation. Especially if a hands free device is used. I will say it was easier to talk on my cell phone while driving prior to getting my iphone as the iphone doesn’t sit comfortably between the shoulder and ear and is just kind of clunky in general. Plus the touch screen aspect means you have to look at the phone to answer instead of finding a button by touch or flipping it open. (Oh how I miss my old phone.)
I don’t know how it is really possible in normal circumstances to not drive a least a bit distracted. When you’re behind the wheel it is difficult not to find something to occupy your mind, whether that be a song on the radio, talking to someone, or just going over something inside your own head. When traffic is really bad or a bunch of crazy drivers are around it is very easy to concentrate just on traffic and driving, but otherwise I’m not sure how you can focus on just the road. When I was learning I read something where you’re supposed to continuously look out the front, rear view mirror, side mirrors, repeat. Found that a bit hypnotic to me, and wound up not fully registering surroundings. Minor distractions help me to feel more focused, if that makes any sense. I’m sure there is some study out there saying that is brain trickery of a sort, but until I get a better option, I’ll stick with it.
Re Great Vowel Shift Timeline-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
Might have to scroll down a little to get the graphic.
Re bell curve- there aren’t many places in the US that use the traditional bell curve anymore. The curve that gets used is to prop scores up. Like if a class of 20 students take a test and the best score out of the class is 80%, that 80% becomes 100%, and the other scores are adjusted up to match that new 100. Not really sure when the system came into play as I remember it from my schooling. Best guess is when it became the thing to make it look like all the kids were doing better than they actually were. Personally have always thought the traditional bell curve was asinine. If a kid gets 85% they should get a B. It shouldn’t matter what the other kids in the class got, and grades should not be doled out based on a quota. If someone knows the material, they know it; if they don’t, they don’t.
Re Siobahn spellings- could just be regional differences that have occurred over time, or people just spelling it however they felt like. There are a lot of kids in the past 15-20 years over here that their parents either have no clue how to spell or just think giving their kid a messed up name was cute. Then those same kids get pissed off when you don’t know how to pronounce their names because the grouping of letters don’t play by any language rules. If your parents saddle you with a grouping of letters that they say is pronounced one way when the rules of language say it’s another, you need to get mad at them. Not at the people you encounter who have no way of knowing what your parents claim the pronunciation is. And I’m not talking about cultural names. I’m talking about names like N’ada which apparently is a different way of spelling India. Just read the bogen article. Maybe that’s what is going on with the weird names over here.
I remember a story from a couple years back of a family getting into an argument with the government about naming their kid. Can’t remember where, so maybe it was New Zealand, or maybe China, but if I remember right they wanted to name their kid in binary code. In all fairness, to the name Apple, that used to be a thing. Was looking at a baby name book when we got our last dog, and there was a list of names people used to give their kids in the 1800s US. Lot of food names (lettuce, apple, ham) and numbers (first, second, etc).
Re Obama using rhetorical devices- Obama is a lawyer, and I would imagine in law school they went over ways to remember arguments and speeches, especially given the universities he attended. Can’t say I agree with him being some fantastic speaker. Maybe it’s because I’ve never seen him speak in person, but I’ve seen some on tv live, and don’t care for his pacing. I think it’s the extended pauses after every comma or period. Also have found him to be a bit long winded, though maybe that is just him pausing too much and the speech seems really long. He also makes people wait a lot when he does the live tv addresses. A live tv speech could be scheduled to start at say noon, and it is usually a 10 minute wait or longer before he gets on stage. Or if it is a speech that is reactionary to something that has happened, it always seems like the press is told he will speak at a certain time, and then the channels are left with just a podium to show for an extended period of time. If it happened now and again, it could be written off, but every time I’ve watched one live he is always making people wait.
Re non-alcoholic drinks becoming mainstream- here’s the thing: for millennium alcoholic drinks were the safest thing to drink because the process to make them killed some of the bacteria that made people sick. As a result people drank more alcoholic drinks, but their tolerance would have been higher, and it would wasn’t just drinking to get drunk like a lot of people do nowadays. It is my understanding that most day to day drinking was with weaker alcohol drinks. Again, it was just the thing to drink that was safest. Getting sh!tfaced drunk was a special occasion thing.
Re Dexter finally – never watched the show myself, but heard most people weren’t happy with the finale. Saw the last few minutes of it, can’t remember why, and it looked like a pathetic ending for a show with a CSI serial killer as the main character.
Re Top Gear: The Races- they were segments like Clarkson driving a car while May and Hammond took the Eurostar to see who could get some place first, or the race across London where the Stig took public transport, Clarkson in a boat, May in the car, and Hammond on a bike, or Clarkson trying to beat the sun driving from one side of England to the other on the shortest night of the year. Pretty much any segment from the past 22 seasons that had some kind of race in it. Then they had LeBlanc do some scripted camera bits to fit in between as needed, and viola! something quickly thrown together that could be aired as they tried to get the new version of Top Gear going. Not sure but I think ‘The Races’ eps just aired in the US. Given when they aired and when LeBlanc was announced as the co-host for the rehashed series it seemed like those eps were some kind of extended audition.
From my understanding the Evans led Top Gear is not doing well. Five weeks out and the top complaints I’m seeing are Evans personality and the lack of gelling between presenters. Ratings are kind of sketchy as well. Lost almost half their audience from week one to week two, and haven’t really gained any back. Numbers I found were live viewing numbers, though, so maybe they’re getting more DVR and internet people.
Re Smarties- wonder who decided then to name a completely different type of candy the same name? Would think avoiding confusion would be smarter.
Re M&Ms- I like their crispy kind. Was out here about a decade ago, disappeared from the US (though were available in Eastern Europe apparently), and then they were brought back to the US couple years ago. The candy layer isn’t thick enough to eat an M&M as you described eating a chocolate Smartie. The candy layer is pretty thin.
Re cookie dough ice cream- no idea if it’s an American invention. Can’t say I’ve ever gotten into it either. Never been into raw cookie dough period.
Re training ourselves to eat- I think I’ve heard some of these theories before, but I think it was saying that they weren’t very successful because it is too hard to trick the brain for an extended period of time or something. Like how a placebo works when a person doesn’t know it’s a placebo, but when a person knows it is a placebo it doesn’t work. And the idea behind so many fake sugars was to trick the taste buds into thinking it was getting something sweet so it wouldn’t’ crave the real stuff. Now those fake sugars are reported to be bad for a person, and make a person hungrier. There is also the back and forth whether a pregnant woman eating nuts or peanut butter results in increased risk of a child with nut allergies. Right now I think they’re saying that eating nuts while pregnant helps the kid. In a few years it will probably swing the other way, unless they can finally figure out where all these food allergies are coming from.
Re Gordon Ramsay- I can’t really stand the guy, but my mom watches his stuff. He’s got like four shows on a free channel over here: Hell’s Kitchen, Master Chef, Master Chef Jr., and some show where he goes around to crappy hotels and tells them what they’re doing wrong. The hotel show is a rip off of another show of the exact same concept shown on a cable channel hosted by some other guy.
Re competitive eating- I don’t get it. I don’t understand why people think it is great that they can binge eat a disgusting amount of food. I can’t imagine even wanting to do that to yourself over and over again. It can’t be a comfortable feeling having that much food sitting in your stomach, and going in that quickly.
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Virtual mobile phone number sites: I'll respond at the top of my head on this topic, so I'm not researching this or anything...I'm not convinced that your fears on this are warranted. Here's my reasoning: say that a site sends a password to you (presumably it's a temporary one because you forgot it or something), well, sure, someone can copy it. However, they have no idea what the recipient's site login is, or perhaps even from what site the password came from. That's one known, i.e. your temporary password, and potentially billions of possible account holders. Your fear would only make sense to me if somebody knew you used the V# site and that you had just requested a password. That seems to me that the crook was actually standing next to you on your computer...or they had your PC being keystroke logged or whatever you call it. Also, I'm not sure that sites always send a link to the V# site but if they did, I presume that only a person logged into that site already could access it...and if it was for a temporary password, then they'd need to provide their login ID in any case. But what do I know? Just guessing. Like I said before, my concern would be if you paid money to the V# site for using their site...I'm not sure how trustworthy they are...there might be dodgy sites...but I don't know that.
Apple’s Pages – I wonder if the open Source type packages like Libre Office have packages which which work with Apple. Have come across articles when I occasionally browse or buy Linux mags (yet to get onto that alternative OS yet though) about how Microsoft is trying to hold onto governments which use its Office suite...but many are jumping ship and saving a ship-load of money to boot. The problem with MS’ suite is that it is proprietary and they can drop support for it. With the open alternative, the standards remain the same, as I understand it, so there’s no question of you losing access to your documents should new versions come out, etc.
Your dad’s swearing – I remember at school having a staff member show me something on Windows...you’d go into the menu box, a drop-down menu would appear, you’d choose an option...another drop-down menu would appear, etc. etc. etc. I might have commented to the staff member words to the effect “You expect me to be able to remember all of that?”. Ideally you want things becoming more intuitive to use, not less. I’ve never really been one to RTFM. Much better when you can suss it out yourself...that’s good design, right there, I think.
Why did it take so long to backup your dad’s computer? Really old backup HDD too or something? As for your mum being reluctant to tell you her password (!)...I was in a public library about a year or so ago and a middle-aged woman, I think, had password problems and she told me her password, from memory. I think I had to tell her to think of a new password. Next thing I did was to guess her new password...I think I just added a “1” to it...when I told her my guess, she looked at me like I had performed an astonishing feat!
You sound more advanced me re PC tinkering, although I did do something similar with my PS3 console...i.e. replace the dead/dying HDD with a new one...but I had a gaming magazine’s article to look at for reference. Just by the by, I have heard that Sony and MS are bringing out better specced versions of their current consoles soon and next year too. Wonder how the people who bought the current consoles feel about that!
With your laptop comparisons, I’ve read how finding the right components can be tricky, is there are so many variations on things like graphic cards...the laptop might sound impressive but it may have, for example, an inferior GPU compared to another laptop. Way too many products, in other words. Was that an issue for you? It seems the kind of thing where it would be good to consult a PC magazine which does a product test on laptops or GPUs for laptops etc.
Downloads messing up...it’s odd that you can say “there were files that did not download correctly”...that seems more a criticism of the source site/code than the end-user. It really shouldn’t be an issue, I don’t think. They should be able to pick up where they left off, in case there is an interruption, but I don’t know about the practicality of that for programmers.
Android – you know that it’s a Google creation, right? From memory, Windows is very marginal...10% share tops, maybe even 5% or less. Guessing that maybe Apple’s OS is up to 10% too...might have once been as dominant as Android, but it’s plummeted due to the opposition being superior in many ways. Have heard that there are privacy versions of Android, i.e. 3rd party, which don’t grant the permissions that Google does to developers. From memory, Paranoid Android is one but it’s probably not the best known one, which I can’t remember the name of. Just Wikid Android...says that it’s based on Linux. Found that more famous Android alternative: CyanogenMod. You have to root your phone etc. to install these OS but once you do, you have more freedom in what you can download (hence a security risk there) and what information your device allows apps to access (hence more privacy than Android).
With new Yahoo accounts requiring a phone number...maybe sometimes it can let you create one without it? E.g. maybe what server you’re connected to is a variable? Why would you want to create a Yahoo account anyway? Isn’t that like MySpace now? i.e. irrelevant. Not sure how more successful Australia’s Yahoo is, which is part owned by a commercial TV network, so, presumably, it is more active as a social site due to integration with the TV scheduling? I dunno.
With your GMail travails, have you considered other sites? If I had my time again I’d probably have passed on the US tech giants’ products. Have heard of an email site called Proton Mail or something...it’s security minded and unlike Gloogle it doesn’t scan your correspondence to target advertising at you. Apparently it encrypts your emails so your government can’t spy on you (theoretically!) and you can send encrypted email too, if the recipient uses the site too or you contact the recipient and provide them with the key to decrypting your message. That seems preferable to me than the alternative...handing over your identity to US giant tech giants who can monetise you and target ads at you. But yeah, I agree with you on the issue that it should be optional to tie various online accounts together. You forget about intentionally so-long-as-to-be-unreadable terms and conditions in your comment about giving control back to the people on privacy etc. It’s probably in there...somewhere! Jumping to your later comment about giving your ‘birthday’ to these sites...I’m now starting to keep records of what I tell these sites! Just in case they test me on this! Hmm...your password book...years ago that would have been derided as insecure but I think the tide has turned on that, insofar as the logic seems to be that it’s unlikely you’ll get robbed and have your password data stolen...who’d steal a book? Hopefully you won’t lose your book! That would give you the irrits!
You mention add-ons and extensions and which ones to trust...I’ve heard that these ones are excellent and safe: HTTPS-Everywhere, by EFF Technologists and NoScript, by Giorgio Maone. These ones get mentioned in PC magazines as being good at keeping you safe(r) when online. With those ads that appear on YT, I think that maybe products like AdBlock Plus by Wladimir Palant might deal with those...they help with web browsing but I’m not sure if they specifically work on those kind of YT ads you mention. Some sites are now making sure their media content doesn’t work with products like that as it affects their advertising revenue. Did also see something about AdBlock maybe being slightly friendly to advertisers, so they don’t block everything 100%...don’t remember what a suggested alternative to that might be...but not doubt some alternatives would be very suss...but sometimes you can see that in the site’s user comments.
Election year...at the time of writing this (second week of July), we’ve just had our federal election. Still waiting on the result...it now looks like the government will be returned...just not sure whether it’s a hung parliament or not...but that’s less likely now. Since I don’t watch the commercial networks, I’ve managed to avoid the ads, mostly. I’m thinking (and the opposition leader does too) that there might be another federal election this year! The senate is has more crossbenchers than before and the government can’t must the numbers there to pass its legislation. Be interesting if you get President Trump there, that’s for sure!
Facebook photos...I have heard of a site called WordPress or something like that. Presumably it’s less corporate and you have more control over your data. Not thought of jumping ship? You could do that before it becomes fashionable! Have heard that people leaving Facebook...it becomes uncool as soon as your parents join!
With my toolbar text comment...on Firefox, when you go to a site, at the bottom of your browser you get this constantly changing text there appearing, from memory, stuff like “attempting to contact Gloogle” etc. I think some of the sites which get access to your attempt to visit a website are probably advertising relating...but I’ve not researched this...it’s just an impression that there are lots of intermediaries between you and your intended destination. Perhaps some sites are tracking you along the way?
“The Weekly” Big Data segment...hmm...I just went to the show’s Home page on YT to see if they had a clip...and the clip that I gave you was actually official...but, here’s the weird thing...the clips either side of that one in the sequence played fine! You don’t think that Gloogle…? In any case, the clip was from Series 2, Episode 11, broadcast on 13th April, 2015.
High quality headphones for Hannibal blu-ray...I have read that a good pair of headphones are equivalent to really expensive speakers. E.g. $1,000 headphones might give you the equivalent to a $16,000 pair of loudspeakers. Have heard of some new headphones selling for about $70,000 (Australian, from memory)...you’d certainly want to hope that they sound better than a $16,000 pair of loudspeakers!
Merch sales – if a store is required to buy the product, then it seems logical to me to count that a sale! As far as the poor go...yeah, maybe it should be mandatory for companies to give charities food which they would otherwise throw out. There was a story early in July on the radio programme Late Night Live about how some Americans are living on $2 a day...some people buy a cup of coffee and pour heaps of cream and sugar into it and that’s there only meal for the day! Other people look after their family solely by selling their blood for money or something. Someone mentioned an ad here in Australia for one state where people are asked to buy a sleeping bag or something for homeless people. That’s sad...we can’t offer these people shelter, but hey, here’s a sleeping bag for you!
Audience surveying – pay tv should be precise, you’d think (I don’t mean pay per view though, although that should be equally as precise). Did hear that Game Of Thrones finale recently set a pay tv record here, about 700,000 odd viewers. Usually the regular programming numbers I’ve seen for the top shows are about 100,000 odd...usually less, I think. That’s pretty impressive...equivalent to a minor hit on commercial tv here. You make a good point about viewer numbers being counted even when people aren’t watching...but that’s true for pay per view too. Do you want a camera on your set top box registering when people are watching? I’m thinking that maybe that is already a thing! The ABC here does count its online views as part of its total views, I think and it’s quite a popular service.
With streaming websites blocking you...virtual private network services don’t allow you to watch them? I think proxy servers are another method of viewing such content but I’m not really sure how that works. With VPNs you just sign up to a free or paid service which fools sites into thinking you are from somewhere with a right to access that content...but I hear that Netflix etc are cracking down on them...but the VPNs try to defeat that measure in any case...a bit of an arms race.
Brain dead – five eps to get a feel for the show...in today’s world, that’s unacceptable...it it doesn’t rate in the first week it’s cancelled! Soaps...some years ago there was a bit of an outcry about the commercial network here showing it skipping entire seasons to bring it up to date or something...not sure what happened there...maybe it’s only on pay now where the die-hards can remain glued years old episodes or something. Can’t remember why the commercial network here did that...too long ago…but wait! What do you know? Wikipedia has an entry on this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Our_Lives#Oceania
I note that Australia was so far behind the US episodes because the network here would give cricket matches priority over the soap.
With Australian tv being different to US tv...are we comparing apples to apples here? i.e. are you talking about advertising on the major commercial networks? The big 3, I suppose, or maybe Fox too. Do the major networks there also refrain from having huge overruns for popular programmes? Think I’ve heard of some tv shows here starting 45 minutes late because of some popular franchise like My Kitchen Rules (or whatever is popular on the commercial networks...I have no idea!). Did notice on my EPG that information on what series and episode was being screened for a particular programme on the ABC was coming up, as well as when the next episode would screen, if not exactly a week later. That’s good, but it still doesn’t help you series record that particular sequence. Another annoying thing about the ABC, even it’s technically commercial free, for some programmes I’ll catch the start of the ep after some network promos but other times I’ll miss the start of the ep...and my recording time remains constant. Really annoying. With online viewing...my main problem with that as a method of viewing is that I don’t think it’s’ very flexible...it would be good if the content was permanently accessible...then it might make a good alternative to free to air viewing or recording. Did hear recently that the kids don’t really watch tv anymore in any case. They’re watching stuff on their devices. Different world!
Interesting re PBS cutting British shows for time and content. Have heard years ago how the commercial networks here would cut scenes out of US shows...from memory we are allowed to have more advertising here so we pad the shows out with more ads...and by the sounds of it also cut shows to fit in more ads too!
Talking on the phone whilst driving – since it’s been a while since I’ve seen that Mythbusters episode, I can’t recall what they said, but it would surprise me if they were being illogical. You might want to view the episode to have your questions answered...I just did a quick search...glanced at the following article...not sure if this is anymore helpful or not:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2015/08/20/is-hands-free-cell-phone-use-really-safer-for-driving-we-asked-mythbusters/
Actually, trying to make sense of your comment whilst not remembering the details of the episode...I’ll hazard a guess that what the Mythbusters mean is that they wanted to implement some real world scenarios which would test drivers using their phones...so that their brain would have to juggle two tasks...one part of their brain focusing on the conversation and the other part of the brain on road related activities. Presumably chatting would be a lot easier if the road conditions were static...but they wanted to throw in things to make it hard...like pedestrians or cyclists getting in your way. Hopefully that addresses your comment, given the circumstances.
I can relate to your comment about driving being hypnotic at times. On occasions I’ve been in my own little world and been lucky to not prang...but my eye would catch a peripheral vehicle and I’d snap out of it. Have also heard how things like better sound insulation in cars makes it easier for people to nod off or at least be oblivious to the outside world, if I recall correctly.
Bell curve – related...quite a few weeks back I was watching Planet America, which covers American politics and they had a slide showing how university students there or something a getting better grades than students have in decades...suggesting that people are getting smarter. The actual case is probably that the grading is more lenient now than ever before...but I can’t remember if that was the conclusion of the programme...but I suspect it was something along those lines.
Not sure if your link to the Great Vowel Shift timeline is a note to yourself or for me...I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to be looking for in any case.
N’ada a different way of spelling “India”? M’kay! I thought it was a different way of spelling “nothing”! Americans used to call their kids “Lettuce”, “Ham” etc? Wow! Re “First”, “Second” etc...is that technically part of their name? E.g. John Smith III...isn’t that just a method of distinguishing generations, rather than being of the name itself? I dunno. You saying that “II” and “Second” are different too? Haven’t really come across Australian names using this convention...have seen it for Americans...e.g. golfers etc.
Obama’s speeches. He is articulate. Have heard it said of Australians that they distrust articulate politicians here! He have had leaders who have been long-winded though...current PM included...who now looks to have regained power...with a bare one or two seat majority...still waiting on whether he gets that second extra seat or not...it’s the last undecided seat.
Interesting re your comments on alcoholic drinks actually safer to drink way back when. Not sure if I’ve heard that elsewhere...like QI or something...Stephen Fry no longer hosts that and he bailed on Twitter, I heard...not sure if that was due to his marrying a man or not. The ‘current’ series of that in Australia has Fry’s last ever episodes showing at the moment...but with some repeats thrown in, unfortunately. Anyway...as a kid, I think I saw a documentary movie at the drive-in, perhaps, which featured animals getting drunk on ferfment fruit...it’s possible that maybe they chose to get drunk...presumably some would eat the fruit even if they saw their group starting to act weirdly. I dunno.
Dexter finale – I’m surprised that you watched the last few minutes. I wouldn’t do something like that unless I had no intention of ever watching the series. Think I read somewhere that people who read such spoilers enjoy the show more, but I can’t say that I recall the details of what I read that well.
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
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Top Gear – You’re no doubt already aware that the host has resigned from it. Read a report in the Herald Sun 06/07/2017 where Chris Evans (not Captain America!!) says “Standing aside is the single best thing I can do”. Also mentioned “The revamped show attracted just 1.9 million viewers to its season finale on Sunday”. Dunno what it used to rate but I do recall that the Australian soap “Neighbours” used to rate about 16 million in the UK in its prime...don’t know what it rates now and its probably changed networks...i.e. poached...years ago, though...maybe less potential viewers as a result too. You mention LeBlanc...I’m currently series recording Episodes with him in...was watching it some years ago on commercial tv, I think, but it’s now on ABC TV...I don’t think that they’re up to the bit where I left off on commercial tv...been deleting the episodes I’ve seen already seen. Hmm...once I see the last current ep of Masters Of Sex on my PVR, I’ll probably starting watching the second last series of Mad Men...maybe even follow that with the final season...might buy the final series of Californication some time soonish too...watched the second last series of that on Blu-ray some months back. A lot of the shows that I’ve been watching have already finished, including Dexter. Already touch with Walking Dead...for some reason the series that I was recording missed the first episode of where I was up to, annoyingly...the network has spammed repeats in the past. Anyway, once I’ve finished some of those other shows, it might give me time to get through that large backlog of other shows on my PVR! Might be a blessed relief to have more time to do other stuff! Back to Chris Evans...what’s wrong with his personality? Or, what you have been hearing about it?
Since my attempted recordings of the recent 24 series and The X-Files didn’t work properly for me, I’ll have to get the discs for these some time, I think. Did hear that X-Files not so good though.
Smarties – I wasn’t aware that two different kind of sweets had the same name...or maybe I’ve just forgotten what we’ve already discussed! Been recording but haven’t watched South Park, Simpsons and Family Guy. SP getting spammed a lot...hard to separate new from repeats. What dramas and sit-coms are you watching?
Eating – there was a story in the newspaper first week of July, I think, about how there was some eating competition in Australia and how one of the competitors would drink a lot of water the night before, I think, to expand their stomach. I seem to remember that fat Americans used to dominate these competitions and now you get skinny Asians winning these competitions! On the subject of diet and fitness, there have been a couple of very interesting episodes of Catalyst within the past year about miracle diets and fitness regimes...they seem to be scientifically solid:
A diet is mentioned here which is supposed to regenerate your organs...or something:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4485468.htm
Getting fit by just exercising for six minutes a week:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4319131.htm
However, one particular presenter on this show (not featured in either story above) has been suspended for continuously coming up with stories which are deemed to be biased against mainstream science...her stories which raised red flags have been pulled from online...including stories on wi-fi dangers and statins. Media Watch has covered these and the episode entries for the 2016 wi-fi story on the Catalyst site now just has info on why the episode was deemed unacceptable.
On where allergies come from...pretty sure that those documentaries (one on Catalyst and an earlier one on SBS TV, “Life on us” say that it’s due to not having enough good gut bacteria. Apparently interest in the topic is so great that Catalyst is repeating its two parter on this now...but then again, they recently seem to be showing repeats! E.g. the one on short exercise bursts being as effective as more intensive training. I did hear a promo for Conversations, with Richard Fidler, on ABC Radio here where a guest was saying that the ebola virus doesn’t make us sick...it’s our bodies reaction to it which does.
Odds and ends:
Age Odd Spot, 23/07/2016: “A funeral company in Smiths Falls, Ottawa, is offering environmentally friendly funerals that dispose of bodies by dissolving them in an alkaline solution, which is filtered and sent to the local sewage system. The skeleton is ground into powder and given
to relatives. Local officials are keeping a close eye on developments”.
Ad for many books, including home remedies, Herald Sun, 13/07/2016, p. 46. Glanced at the one for “The lemon book” and these caught my eye! “Why drinking lemon ‘through your nose’ could help relieve asthma symptoms…page 25”, “Revealed at last! Cleopatra’s anti-wrinkle remedy...page 42” and “Constipation? Do this half an hour before you have breakfast...page 27”. I don’t like the sound of that! Then there’s this shouty one: “LADIES! Why putting a lemon in your fridge will give you the most powerful skin cleaner for cents!...page 46”.
Word count: 4,058
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
Re Gruen American gun control- the first ad linked, talking about crowdfunding to get enough money to out buy the NRA, might actually work. Though politicians like to pretend they can’t be bought, so such a direct bribe might backfire. It would also set a horrible precedent, and I could see it getting to the point that a senator or representative would expect a large pay out from a crowdfund each time they voted against the different lobbyists. To protect the money I would suggest the senators/representatives don’t get paid unless the law gets to the President’s desk. Hard to imagine, but politics would probably become even more crooked and despicable with crowdfunding.
Re Nielsen- I wonder how long they leave boxes on? I thought it was 6 months, but went looking for the answer and some people said they had been doing it for over a year. Then there are the people that do the weekly diary, in which they just write-in what they watch for a week. If Nielsen doesn’t trust the people with the box attached to the tv for three months, how the hell can they trust what anyone writes in the journal things? Wouldn’t people be just as likely or more so to lie on that?
There is a late night talk show over here called Jimmy Kimmel Live! and one of the segments they do is Lie Witness News. The go out on Hollywood blvd. and ask people is they saw some made up news story that supposedly came out within the last 24 hours and get their comments. One was over a new “earthquake schedule”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNBpJN3Tmzw
that I can’t believe people think quakes can be scheduled.
There are a lot of political ones coming out right now because of election year. The question can be as basic as ‘did you see Hilary Clinton’s big announcement this morning?’ when there was no announcement, or bs about Trump’s ‘newly released tax returns’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYpw2uAD9bg .
I guess I can understand not wanting to seem like you aren’t keeping up with current politics, but it is so ridiculous that I don’t see how anyone buys it. What I don’t understand in any way is why people lie about keeping up with entertainment news/stories, like the following beauty where Kim Jong-Un won the US version of Dancing With the Stars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC4LoSm5ZhE
Really people? Just admit you don’t watch the damn show. Who is going to think less of you for admitting you don’t watch a show where a bunch of D-list celebs compete on the dance floor? Maybe the saddest I came across was the following one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4LnwRE5oeg
re dad swearing at Mac for not knowing what to do- personally I think the Macs are more intuitive than Windows because I find everything is more easily accessible. With Windows to change any computer setting had to go into Control Panel and then attempt to figure out which tab it was hidden behind because none of the tabs had simple names. They were all in tech-speak. And installation of any program on a Mac tends to be drag and drop where you want it; Windows had different menus to go through to get it in the right spot, and good luck finding it if you put it in the wrong place. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad now because can go online and find step-by-step instructions, but still get nightmares about dealing with Control Panel. The only positive I can think about the Windows computers were that they died slow deaths, so you knew you should be looking for a computer because the old one was getting slow and funny issues when booting. The Mac hard drives that went were operating fine, turned the computer off, and then they wouldn’t boot. Maybe Windows has gotten better once you’re familiar with the OS, but still seem overly complicated when I’ve looked in stores compared to the Mac OS.
Re back-up taking so long- First, when I told parents to put photos, docs, etc. on to USB or CD and delete what they could from the computer, they didn’t listen. They backed the stuff up to other CD/USB, but didn’t take the files off the computer. So there were a bunch of large photo and image files. (Really ticked me off when the whole ordeal was over and Mom said we could have taken the photos off before doing the backup. When I told her she said I had to leave them on the computer she just shrugged at me.) Second, the computer had never been backed-up, so 6 years worth of junk was on there. Third, and probably the biggest issue, the hard drive was on its last leg. We have a habit of leaving the computers on all the time (because years ago had heard that it was better for the computer to stay on instead of getting turned on/off constantly. Don’t know if that is true anymore, but we still have that habit.), but as part of the OS install it had to restart. I think even if we hadn’t been installing a new OS, the HD would have died the first time the computer had been turned off and attempted to turn it back on.
The drive we were backing up to was brand new and been purchased specifically for the back-up.
Re Mom not giving password- When downloading the OS, it is done through iTunes store. My parents had never set up an iTunes account in all the time they had the computer. I was trying to get my mother to come up with a password to create the iTunes account. I really don’t get why she was so reluctant to create the account. Apple already had a bunch of info because of registering the computer, so the iTunes account is no big deal.
Re replacing hard drive- the most complicated bit was removing all the screws, and making sure not to lose the small things. Found a vid online that demonstrated how to put the drive in. It was literally one thing to plug into the drive. Now I understand why Apple screwed people over and started soldering their drives in place – people can’t replace them.
Re laptop comparisons- with my parents, they don’t need anything fancy. My mother is a facebook addict, and from time to time finds a simple game (like Spider Solitaire) to play, but nothing really taxing on the hardware. The most intensive workout the computer gets is when my mom clicks on links from facebook that take her to sites that are ad intensive. The ones where you have to click through several pages to read the whole story, most of each page is filled with video ads and still ads, and sometimes the story doesn’t load at all. Just the ads. When we replace our computers, though, we try to get ones with large memory, decent size hard drives (though now I look for SSDs or combination ones), and good RAM. The hope is that the computer will be able to keep up with the “advances” the internet makes for several years instead of only one or two. This time around most of my time was trying to figure out which SSD would be good to drop into their old computer. That really felt like a craps shoot as it seemed like everyone had their favourite and the tests that I read had them all averaging out to be about the same.
Re downloads messing up- I think it could also be an internet connection issue with the computer. Like there is just enough a glitch to lose a bit of file, but not enough to where the user would notice anything. The problem with computers is that there are so many variables where something could go wrong, broad hypotheticals can get a bit meaningless, I think. Would have to get into different scenario parameters, which tends to get into programming, and I hate programming. Started to learn a little bit at uni, and it was like someone was asking me to do high level calculus in some alien writing.
Re Yahoo account- I needed a new e-mail account because a job site I had registered with a long time ago, but hadn’t been on in like a year, would not let me login with the old e-mail address because it had been inactive for too long, but wouldn’t let me re-activate or change the password and didn’t let me answer security questions to get back in. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a very sh!t site, but don’t really expect anything less from the government. I wanted to use yahoo because at the time I don’t think I had any gmail accounts and didn’t want the hassle of learning a new set-up. In the end it didn’t matter because now Yahoo demands mobile phone numbers to create new accounts, supposedly for security if you get locked out of your account. Bull. I don’t trust what they’d do with that phone number.
As far as Yahoo being successful, they just sold out to Verizon over here. I guess that is for the worldwide Yahoo, too. Don’t know how that is going to affect it going forward, but makes me want to give them my number even less.
Re other e-mail sites- I looked for one, and think got like 4 options back, including yahoo and gmail. What happened to all of them? I know, I know. They were eaten one by one by the bigger internet companies. I remember when I was growing up there were a bunch of different ones. Each internet provider had one, msn (I think that’s who it was), yahoo, aol, there were some that you could tie to a website so people could make addresses that reflected an interest (think a company called angelfire was the one powering that though). Now it is basically down to two big names and a bunch that may or may not be there in a year.
Re ad-blockers- getting very tempted to install one for YT. Keep getting politician ads on YT, and it always seems to be the same one. There was one vid I watched, the same g-dd@mn political ad played before the vid started, in the middle, and at the end of the vid. I don’t need to see the same ad for the same person multiple times in one vid. It is bad enough on tv when there are 15 mins approx. between commercial breaks, but when it is the same thing three times in less than 15 mins it is ridiculous. It makes me not care about the person/issue. If I have to listen about the same person/issue, at least vary the commercials on YT.
We’re about a month out now from elections, and the TV ads are getting absurd in number as well. There are some commercial breaks that are nothing but political ads. On TV, though, if you watch cable channels, the ads aren’t as bad as the free stations. I guess cable is too expensive for the campaigns to dump a lot of their ads on it. I’m going to have to find a sample ballot to be sure, but we have ads running right now for one issue and think 4 different elected positions. I’m getting to the point where I’m not going to care who wins the position I’ll just be glad I don’t have to listen to the ads anymore. I think there should be law that says politicians aren’t allowed to attack their opponent(s) in their ads; they are only allowed to say what they have done and what their plans are once they get in office. Should also be a law saying they’re only allowed to campaign for about a month. Feels like between the primaries and the regular elections this round has been going on for over a year.
Re WordPress- I think this is more of a blogging site. Or maybe it is just a general website building/hosting, but not the same thing as Facebook. There was something I saw, think about five years ago, where the population age on Facebook had trended upwards from their original intention. Some of it was because the people that had been on Facebook from the beginning of the site were getting older, but also that a lot of parents were joining, and that did drive the younger people away. Snapchat was the thing for awhile, might still be. Facebook either is planning or just recently came out with something that is basically scaled down to what Facebook originally was intended, but sounds sketchy. Like you have to be between I think 13-21 to use it, and a certain number of people from your school have to be active on the site before you can use it to connect with friends, but I don’t think you can chat with people not at your school. But there is some ‘Like’ and photo system in place that sounded absurd and just another place where cyberbullying is going to happen. And it sounds like a pedos paradise.
I remember when I first joined Facebook, I had to initially register with a school provided e-mail. It was like late part last year of high school, and couldn’t get on because it wouldn’t accept the e-mail, and had to wait and register with my uni e-mail. Maybe if they’re going to use that system to keep older people out.
Re sites tracking- any site that uses cookies tracks you in some way, and almost every site uses cookies. It can be easy to forget because after that first visit there is never any more warning. Pretty much every news site does it, some tv channel sites, some shopping sites. I remember one Christmas I was looking up info about something we were getting my mother on my computer, under my Amazon account so she wouldn’t be able to look in history for it, and I thought, the ads showing up on my parents computer wouldn’t reflect the activity. Was on their computer a few days later and the item I had been researching was showing up in the interactive ads that Amazon had on different websites. Maybe my dad had been looking at it on their computer, but he had told me to do the looking. The only thing I can think of is it had to do with the house internet address. Don’t think it has happened in awhile, but that still pissed me off. No privacy, anywhere.
Re online channel agreements- There are channels over here that have agreements with different internet providers. If you have internet from one of the negotiated providers, you can stream the eps available on the channel’s website. When we’re at home it picks the account info up automatically. If we travel somewhere in the US, we can log on with the username and password we use to access the eps on certain websites.
I don’t think the proxy would work for something like this because it isn’t a location block. It is a subscription-type thing. You have cable provider Z, who has an agreement with channel Whatever, so as a cable Z paying customer, channel Whatever lets you watch their online eps. Think this also helps the cable companies keep customers. Like, why pay for cable at all if you could just pay for internet and go stream the shows you wanted to watch?
I have tried to use some proxys in the past, though. I like the Brit show QI, but for copyright legalities with some of the images the show uses, it isn’t shown over here. (Well, they aired a few of the short version eps of one season on Thursday for a couple weeks. Guess it didn’t get the ratings they wanted so they shunted it to early Sunday morning and haven’t seen it since.) Anyway, watched quite a bit on YT, but had to use a proxy for most of it, and even then there were times it wouldn’t let me watch. The site I originally found LOM and A2A on was some Chinese site. Went on there to see if I could find QI, but either it wasn’t there or the name had been translated into Chinese characters and hunting using roman type didn’t get me anywhere.
With streaming sites like Netflix, people use the proxys because it isn’t available in their country. Have heard of people creating proxy accounts for iTunes and App store to get apps and movies not normally available in their market. Would assume that is being cracked down like Netflix is doing.
Re fast cancellations- yeah, there have been a couple shows over here that have been pulled after one or two eps. I figure Braindead had someone behind it at the network that liked it. It got moved to a worse time slot, and they burned off the last two eps in a two-hour finale (that started an hour earlier than usual, which at least they warned people about that, but they didn’t warn that the show was going to be two hours that night). As much as I liked it, I hope they don’t do a second season. It is one of those shows that worked for what they did in one season, but I think would have a hard time finding itself, or just be very repetitive if they did a second. There is a show that is airing its second season, Quantico, right now that is like that. The first season worked, mostly, except they had some issues that were never resolved well and they aren’t things that because of how they were handled shouldn’t come up in this season. Now, though, the second season seems very similar to the first, and find myself asking why I’m watching it still. May give up on it at some point. Maybe if I binged it I could stomach it. There are some shows I’m like that with. Don’t care enough about them if there is week between eps, but if I can binge a few in one sitting I’m enjoy it more.
Re soaps- have never been able to get into any of these. My mom watches a few, and it seems like the same scripts are just passed around to the different shows. Who is sleeping with who and who is screwing who over. Gets old really fast. It is a bit annoying as she has two of them set for series record on our DVR, but if she watches them live she usually won’t go in and delete them. So there is over a month of one still on there that she is mostly caught up on, and one that there is over a month of eps that she claims she is going through. I don’t understand why a person needs to watch every ep of soaps anyway. They move so slow that it seems like watching one or two eps a week would have you all caught up on what is going on.
Re American TV- the only overrun we really get is from sporting events, because for some reason scheduling people still haven’t figured out that American football rarely ends after three hours, and baseball is a completely up in the air with how long a game will take. The award shows are getting better about ending close to when they’re supposed to, but I think that is because popularity is going down with some of them. Most of the time, though, the only thing really affected by these overruns is the late night news, which will come on after the event is over. Well, for part of the country. The west coast is on a later viewing schedule than the east and central time zones (and I have no clue about the mountain time zone, or Alaska and Hawaii) for non-live events. I don’t understand how you can have an overrun for a program unless the network is just airing a bunch of eps back-to-back. Even then it isn’t like the network doesn’t know how long an ep is when they receive it from the production company. Or are they live shows that are going over?
Re streaming- there are a couple cable channels that lucky for me have a good archive of their shows. Syfy, for example, had all of season 1 of a show that had aired over a year ago, so I was able to watch it like that, and they have S2 of a show that is sitting on my DVR, but I’ll probably watch online as my mother has started watching tv until like 11:30 each night. BBC America has a few of their shows up for long stretches as well. With Ripper Street it seems like they have a limited time for those, but I think that is because Amazon is now the show’s main production company. There are a couple shows I’ve watched on Fox in the past few years, and they seem to have the last five aired eps up at a time, even if it is the first couple from the current season and the last three of the previous season. For the shows currently airing or in production anyway.
Have heard that more and more people are going away from using watching tv in a traditional way. Personally I would be using a tv to watch shows, even if it is binging a season from the DVR if my parents didn’t take them over all the time. That wouldn’t irritate me so much if they actually watched shows, but my mother will have a show on the tv, and then be reading a book or on the internet through the whole thing. Or fall asleep. Maybe I’m just weird in that aspect. If you’re going to watch a show, watch the show. Don’t just have it on as background noise. Then if I put on something she doesn’t like I have to listen to snorts and sarcastic comments through the whole thing.
Re sound insulated cars- my car is about 20 year old with a soft top on it, and it is very noisy, to the point that I actually use the noise to help me drive safer, i.e. despite being a small car, a large SUV has no problem hiding in my blind spot, but due to the engine noise from the other car, even if I don’t immediately see the car, I can hear it and know to give it another look. Both of my parents drive cars under 10 years old, and it is drastically different being in their cars where so much of the road noise is cut out. It makes me a bit scared about ever having to start driving a different car because I won’t be able to rely on my ears as much. Every car seems to be getting the blind spot warning tech now so maybe it won’t be so bad. Still hoping to keep my car for a long time to come.
Re US grading- yes, it is becoming more lenient. Otherwise I would have failed Econ. I still have no clue how I actually passed that class. My test grades were horrible, and the only other grades were attendance and one paper that was a couple pages long where you had to summarize a couple articles. I’m really glad I passed and didn’t have to retake it, but still no clue how I managed to pass.
Re naming first, second,… - some people do have that as part of their names when they are named after relatives, but this book was talking about the person’s given name actually being First or Second, etc. I think it may have been when people were having a dozen kids and the parents really didn’t care about names, and it was an easy way to keep track of what order the kids were in.
Re Dexter finale- like I said, can’t remember why I watched the last few minutes, but I have no intention of ever watching Dexter anyway. The one that I did watch the last few minutes of and wound up watching the whole series was the Hannibal tv show. On YT the finale kept coming up in my ‘recommended’ list on the side and I finally caved. Thought it was beautifully done and decided to watch the whole thing. Had no intention of watching the show until seeing that clip, so can’t say I’m upset for seeing the last five mins of the show first.
Normally I hate spoilers, and only want a broad, spoiler-free synopsis of what the show will be about. Typically it will be whatever the production company or channel has put out prior to the first ep because I don’t usually pick up shows after their first season. Maybe if an actor I like is in the show I’ll look into it late, but for me it is usually the beginning or nothing. I don’t understand how a person can get more enjoyment from spoilers. An anticipation thing maybe?
The other thing I hate with tv shows is when actors and show runners constantly say X isn’t going to happen in an attempt to misdirect the audience and hoping to quash leaked info. And then X happens in the show.
Re Top Gear and Chris Evans- the biggest complaint I saw about his was that he was constantly shouting. No voice modulation whatsoever. Never watched him on it, so can’t say if it is true or just people that don’t like him. The presenters not gelling was also a complaint that lasted through the whole series.
Evans is now gone, but LeBlanc has signed on for two more series. Will be interesting to see how he does as he is staring in a new comedy over here as well. Pilot is scheduled to air in late October.
Re shows watching- FYI: my summaries are crap, and probably won’t do the shows justice.
Shows currently airing on tv:
Lucifer – the devil got bored in hell, came to LA, opened a night club, and through a series of events is now helping a detective solve crimes. Meanwhile his angel brother has been tasked with getting him back to hell. S2 just started and I’ve skipped a bit so as not to give spoilers away.
Conviction- the district attorney has put together a Conviction Integrity Unit, designed to go over cases of people in jail to see if the correct verdict was reached. The group is comprised of a former cop, a former prisoner who is now a forensic guy, a girl from one of those groups that work to get people out of jail (think they said Innocence Alliance), and a prosecuting attorney. The one leading it is a former president’s daughter who has a wild reputation, but somehow became a lawyer. In the beginning of the pilot she is in a holding cell for cocaine possession and the DA gives her the option of leading the CIU or going to jail. And her mother is running for some elected office (can’t remember if it’s Senate or President – pretty sure it’s Senate). The pilot made sure to show all of the characters have issues and ‘pasts’ that I guess will get in the way of cases and smooth operation at some point. The second ep just aired. Only giving it a chance because I liked some of the actors from other shows. Don’t know if I’m going to stay with it or not.
Bull- Fronted by Michael Weatherly (who played Anthony DiNozzo on NCIS for 13 years). It is a look at basically, jury manipulation, and is supposed to be based of Dr. Phil’s early career. Weatherly plays Dr. Jason Bull, a psychiatrist that has a company that is hired by people going to trial, and he profiles the juries to try and get a not guilty verdict. They build profiles of the people based on their online accounts, and create a mock jury to judge how the trail is going daily for their client. More interesting than it sounds, but there is a lot of what goes on in the show that I thought was illegal. Like I didn’t think jury member names were supposed to be known to the defense team for the safety of the jury members. And there is a hacker that works for the company, that basically I think everything she does is actually illegal. Only a few eps in. I’ll see where it goes.
Quantico- show has a split timeline. S1 past timeline followed Alex and her fellow FBI trainees through Quantico as they learned to become agents, with a bunch of relationship drama thrown in and the obligatory messed up backstories. S1 current timeline started with terrorist blowing up Grand Central Station in Manhattan and framing Alex for it. The audience was told from the previews that the terrorist was in the FBI, and S1 was all about figuring out who it was. Was okay. There were some plot holes that they never fixed (like a character died in ‘current’ timeline, but in the past she took a hiatus for family issues from Quantico in that ep, so it doesn’t make sense that she would be an agent when ‘current’ timeline was going on. I know it was done so they wouldn’t have to keep the actress around after her character died, but just bad writing.)
S2 just started and is setting up to be another law enforcement-terrorist conspiracy mess that only Alex can stop. Also there are a lot of characters missing, and I’m guessing it was so they could bring in these other characters. Always cheaper when you can replace a good number of your actors season to season. I’ll probably stick with it through at least half season, but I don’t know if I’m going to be interested enough to stick around.
Shows on break/hiatus:
Black Sails- pirate drama set in the Caribbean late 1700s. Sort of a prequel to Treasure Island. Mixes characters from Treasure Island with portrayals of real pirates from the era. Focuses mainly on power struggle to control Nassau port. This one I’ve really liked. The fourth and last season begins in January.
Orphan Black- sci-fi-ish drama about clones. A woman finds out by accident that she is a clone, and gets drawn into the fight against the company that created her and her clone siblings. Can get a bit nuts and overly complicated in bits. I’m fine with this show if I can binge it, but don’t like watching weekly. The fifth and last season starts sometime in 2017.
Killjoys- has morphed a bit from it’s early eps. A space show set in some other solar system. Started as being about a group of bounty hunters, but issues from the lead’s past caught up with them and looks like there is going to be some kind of war. S2 finished airing this summer, and has been renewed for S3. I’m assuming it will air next summer. I originally gave this show a pass, but right before S2 started I saw the first five minutes of S1 on YT. Then binged all S1 in the week before S2 started. I still enjoy the show, but it got a lot heavier in S2 than S1, and there were some writing decisions that had me going ‘why?! Just let me have my light show.’ But of course I don’t think anything can really be light and last on air, not over here anyway.
Ripper Street- drama set in Whitechapel, London. Starts about 6 months after the Jack the Ripper murders stopped. Follows Inspector Ried, his Sargent Drake, and an American doctor who becomes an equivalent of medical examiner/forensic person for the division. Started as a BBC show, was cancelled after S2, and was picked up by Amazon. BBC America just finished airing the fourth season. The fifth and final season in currently in production. There is a weekly case element to the show, but also an arc that tends to stretch over each season. I’ve never paid a whole lot of attention to each season because previously I had been watching it on tv and because of when it was on there tended to be a lot of distractions. S4 I watched online, and probably because of that, I enjoyed it more. This show could have ended after S3, but it will be interesting to see how they close out S5, especially given how S4 ended.
12 Monkeys- the concept was taken from the 80s movie of the same name, but I think they changed quite a bit to stretch it into tv format. Basically a disease has killed off most people by 2043. A group of scientist creates a time machine to send a guy back to 2013 to try and stop the virus before it starts. Problem is they don’t know exactly when or where. Series revolves around the people trying to work it out and save the population. S2 has finished, the season is sitting on the DVR waiting for me, or more likely I’ll watch it on the channel’s website. Has been renewed for S3, which will air in 2017.
Sleepy Hollow- (**backstory: there is an old American tale called The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Set in late 1700s in the Northeast of America. The relevant info is that a man called Ichabod Crane was riding home late one night and encountered a headless horseman who attacks him. Ichabod is never seen again.) In TV Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane is killed during the American Revolution by a mercenary who is some kind of supernatural something or other. A spell is placed over him and he is buried. In 2013, the Headless Horseman is summoned, and because of the spell, Crane wakes up, too. The Horseman is one of the biblical horseman of the apocalypse, and Crane, along with Lieutenant Abby Mills, are Witnesses who have to stop the apocalypse. That worked for the first 2 seasons, but S3 brought in some strange Sumerian gods and just kind of WTH. It has been renewed for S4, but several of the cast members have left, and the show is changing location, so don’t know if it really going to work. I’m not sure if I’m going to tune in or not. It is kind of a classic example of shows I’ve seen lately that has a concept for its first season, but they write themselves into a corner, and have to end their original story, and instead of finding a good ending for the show, they start grabbing at different ideas to ‘re-invent’ the show to keep it going. I know the idea is to keep the show going as long as possible, but I wish they’d do a couple different outlines when the show gets going as to how to keep the original intent going so these asinine and left-field plot lines weren’t thrown out just to keep the show going. And if a show has run its course, then let it end with a good conclusion. Don’t keep throwing random crap and hoping the viewers don’t mind it.
Shades of Blue- follows a detective that is part of crooked group of detectives at her precinct. The idea is suggested that the area the precinct covers is safer because of the groups dealings with some of the local bad guys, i.e. old idea where the regular citizens are safer because they don’t get caught in crosshair of turf wars and whatnot. Anyway, FBI knows the cops are dirty, approaches the one detective and says get the evidence on the others and you won’t get charged. Detective agrees, but through the show is trying to play a balancing act of giving FBI enough info to keep them satisfied while trying to find a way to keep the other detectives from getting busted and finding out she’s a federal informant. More moral shadiness because her FBI handler isn’t the straightest shooter himself. S1 aired I think last winter. S2 is currently filming, from my understanding, but don’t know when it will air. Saw speculation that it is going to be a ‘mid-season premiere’ which usually means winter sometime. Another show I started watching because an actor I liked from other shows was in it. Found S1 to be okay as it went on, but the S1 finale will bring me back to see how they play out the consequences.
And that was probably a much more detailed account than what you were looking for. When I put it in a list like that, it makes me feel like I watch a lot of tv, but then I look at when the shows are actually airing on tv, and it is like having a summer set and a fall/winter set. And most of them only have like 13 eps or less a season. Three of them will definitely be ending next year, two others are teetering on the bubble, and two others are too new to know yet. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if about half the shows I listed aren’t on the air in 2018. Around two years ago in roughly a 12 month time span 13 shows that I watched either had an official final season or were just flat cancelled. At the time I told myself I wasn’t going to pick up a lot of shows after that. Don’t think I managed to hold myself to that.
Re living longer diet- I would like to see a long term study on this fasting diet before any real conclusions are done. The doctor was saying a bunch of your cells are killed off during the fast and then regenerated when you eat normally, but how long can the body be expected to maintain that regeneration? Then the author was saying how she had a headache all week she was on it, her thinking went “spacy” (which any other time I’ve heard someone say this it means they have a hard time thinking straight, despite her claims otherwise), and half way through she basically didn’t have the energy to do anything. Put it this way, I would not want anyone on this fasting diet to be at any sort of job, no matter how simple. And what age do you start this?
I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’ve felt that headache and “spacy” feeling before a couple times when I’ve been sick and had a hard time keeping anything down. Even when I got better it took a couple days for it to go away. I can’t imagine willingly doing that to your body every few months. If I was forced between choosing the two methods mentioned in this story, I think I’d rather take the pill. Though, to be honest, living to be over a hundred really has no appeal to me.
Re six minutes of exercise- a bit of a lie, that title. Yes, the exercise itself may only last six minutes, but the entire process still takes about half an hour. And if a person is driving to and from a location that increases the time it will take to complete. Sounds like the easiest way to convince a person to do this would be to have an exercise bike in the house, although I’m sure people would still find excuses not to do it – like the people who get treadmills and the treadmill winds up being more of a place to hang clothes than a workout machine.
Re allergies- lack of good gut bacteria would make sense for food allergies, but what about other allergies, like dust or different types of pollen? Ones that primarily effect the sinus region. Probably just a different type of bacteria deficiency?
Re suspended Catalyst reporter- it is one thing if her stories are completely off the wall and pointless scare stories, but sometimes main stream science can be wrong. Just look how long doctors thought bleeding a patient was the way to heal said patient of any type of ailment. And the treatment of people with developmental disorders like autism. I think it has been under 50 years where before they’d be locked away in some type of asylum, and now people work with them to try and get them to live fairly normal lives. So, yeah, there are some complete crackpot “science” theories, but not all mainstream science is probably right.
Re home remedies: lemons relieving asthma- I cannot imagine the pain of something as acidic as lemon juice going through the nasal cavity. Hopefully that story just means inhaling the scent of the lemon.
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re Gruen ad “Pitches” - a lot of time the agencies just seem to be going for a laugh and the ads don’t make much sense or seem to be actually doing what they should be doing, if some organisation was actually paying them to do the ad. Not exactly sure if those US gun ads are not serious or half-serious or serious. I was thinking that politicians might not be persuaded by the money because it might not be a reliable source of funding for them...perhaps it would be smarter (for them) to take less money from the NRA but they’d at least know that the money would be consistent for them. As far as your idea of protecting the integrity of crowdfunded money, well, that made me think of the money that the NRA (and other groups) gives to politicians...politicians can expect to keep getting that money...so long as they keep voting against gun reforms. Not sure that politics would be more corrupt with crowdfunding though...by definition it’s transparent, isn’t it? i.e. the crowdfunders have to state what their objective is, I think. With corporations and lobby groups, it’s opaque as to what their quid pro quo is though.
re Nielsen – I’m surprised that they still use diaries. I’d agree with you about their accuracy, though not necessarily for reasons of people lying…more along the lines that people aren’t timely and maybe misremember what they were watching earlier and how many were watching etc. I suppose it’s possible to lie with the electronic boxes though...e..g number of people watching etc.
re Scheduled earthquakes...that segment just seemed so mean! I didn’t watch all of it...first couple of people only. Haven’t really pondered why I found The Chaser’s segment in which they similarly interviewed Americans funny but put-off by that Kimmel segment. I dunno...maybe I wouldn’t find The Chaser’s clips that funny any more. Maybe the Kimmel clip was just more overtly making people look like idiots or something...and yes, if those people being interviewed were serious, they looked like idiots. On the Trump tax returns clip – seeing as Donald Trump is now your president-elect, I think that it demonstrates that his supporters were rusted-on supporters (I think that our former PM, John Howard, coined that phrase about voters here once being tribal...although not so many of them are now).
On the Kim Jong-Un clip...3rd clip in a row where I didn’t watch much of it, I’m afraid! On the subject of Kim, the media were reporting how it was being claimed in North Korea that he had broken all these world records...stuff like getting a record low score in a round of golf etc...did see somewhere – not sure where – that that stuff is just rubbish. From that perspective, it seems that even professional media get sucked into regurgitating falsehoods...no better than the people being made to look like idiots on Kimmel. As to why people “buy it”...well, if you’d been following the media for the US election, who would have bought a Trump victory? All sorts of things are possible, really...they might stretch credulity but people might take it on face value...which is still no excuse for lying (or being convinced?) about seen Dancing With The Stars or whatever the topic was. Hmm...on that Martin Luther King clip at the start, Kimmel mentions that it can take a while to find people “dopey” enough to include on their segment. Made a point of skipping forward to see if there was a black person who fell for it. Yup.
Re PCs being more complicated...not sure if I mentioned this before, but years ago I was incredulous at a computer lab staff member showing me the process to do something on a PC (maybe in the browser)...go into the menu, choose an option, look at the drop-down menu and choose an option in that...look at another drop-down menu and choose an option in that. I told the guy “You expect me to be able to remember that?”. Windows has no doubt become less complicated in the ensuing years...once you get the hang of it, I suppose. Have heard of Linux distributions which try and model themselves on either Windows (including older versions) and Mac...not sure how intuitive the Mac type Linux distros are though.
So, when you were backing up your parents’ Apple, was you mum taking notes on how to do it herself? Nowadays I suppose it’s easy to learn how...just watch a Yew Tewb clip, I suppose. re leaving computerss on to look after the hard drive...not sure if I’ve heard that before...I have heard that Solid State Drives are different to regular Hard Drives, so it’s a definite no-no to defrag them...not sure how bad it is to attempt to defrag them though. Apples use hybrid drives, I hear...not sure how that works and if you can defrag the HDD without touching the SSD component of it. Do they have separate drive names? With buying a Mac, do you have to hand over a lot of personal info to get one, do you? That would suck, I suppose. Apple gets that info? So what’s your conspiracy theory about why Apple solder their drives in place? I’ve probably heard it before, but I forget the details. To do with servicing requiring you have to go to an Apple store...where they charge you for the privilege? Or having to buy a new Mac when problems arise?
re memory and RAM...the last I heard, 16Gb of RAM was the one to get for PCs...there’s no real upside to getting more than that, based on current usage and applications, but less than that affects performance. What did you get? re SSDs, Samsung has a good reputation...e.g. their older “Pro” series of drives...probably a lot cheaper now and better value as a result. What kind of programming were you learning at uni?
Why are you blaming the government for Yahoo being so shytte? Yahoo was in the news many weeks ago (maybe months by the time I post this)...re Yahoo allowing your spy agencies a backdoor into their email system...i.e. users’ emails. So, you’ve got a GMail account, do you? Surprised if you did, given that you don’t trust Yahoo! How is Goolge any better? You trust Yahoo less because of Verizon? Verizon have a reputation for being bad with personal data?
re email providers...were you aware of a lot of these ones? I’m not even sure that they’ve got all of the available ones! I have heard of Proton Mail...apparently it’s for the security conscious...encrypted emails...if both parties are using the service though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_webmail_providers
re political ads on YT...for which party? Maybe Goolge is watching you? Did hear on BBC radio – in passing – how Facebook might have won the election for Trump...from the little I heard, to do with FB being a filter...an echo-chamber...you get news in your feed which reflects your opinions back to you. I watch a tv programme on the web – it’s community tv – and they have the same ad at the start of the programme...it’s an ad advertising their attractiveness as an advertising vehicle...every week it’s there...not actual ads by companies though...or maybe they’re pitching it for the tv version? In any case, the government is booting them of free to air tv...so they’ll have to survive on the web.
re US election I have been watching “Planet America” on ABC News 24 here and I was staggered to see on campaign ad there which said that one politician was a criminal or something. That’s such a serious allegation and apparently you can bandy words like that in the US with impunity. Australia does have a media blackout law which prevents political ads after a certain point, I think. Maybe, like the US, the courts here prevented some laws which would curtail political advertising...but I’m vague on the specifics of that. Have heard that Super PACs are a bad thing in the US...not sure that it’s that bad in Australia. Doubt it.
I’d be surprised if FB culled its user base to keep older people out...the more the merrier for them, I suppose. Maybe they’re just trying to keep younger people apart from older people there? With WordPress, I’m wondering if that can be as much like FB as you want it to be or not at all like it. You don’t consider FB a blogging site? I thought that that’s how a lot of the users treat it...but I dunno.
Speaking of FB and ad blockers...I do remember a story about Facebook censoring ABC TV (Australia) news story on their FB site, which is a different issue...but I did find this Media Watch story on the threat of FB to news, and it mentions ad blockers too:
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4481060.htm
Perhaps this is the story that I had in mind:
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4251103.htm
Just noticed this story today, it’s relevant re censorship aspect (long article though):
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/10/facebook-fake-news-election-conspiracy-theories
re site tracking...I have heard that websites are using more pernicious forms of cookies now...even apps which remove your activity traces might not be able to remove these news kinds of cookies...from memory, they’re called “web beacons”, I think. Re your Amazon experience...maybe Amazon “knows” that you are related to you parents somehow? i.e. they have your parents account details, they have yours and...the AI puts two and two together? I dunno. Or maybe, like you said, your dad was looking up the same info on their computer.
Is the tv you watch streaming online? Not sure I could hack that, re buffering, poor cueing and reviewing etc...I like to jump around an episode a lot or just go back a few seconds to catch something I missed...streaming makes that process a pain, I think. I’m surprised that there are copyright issues with QI. If that’s a BBC show, it might explain why we haven’t seen eps with the new host yet...a cable service now has first dibs on BBC content...I think...maybe on some shows, at least.
Have heard that Australians can access the US or UK services on their consoles...not sure if a proxy is required or a VPN...but it seems if you create a US based account, say, you can buy games there...or rent/buy tv shows etc, I assume.
re fast cancellations, I suppose it depends on whether you like the show or not as to whether that is a good thing...sometimes I find myself watching series but I’m not really that into it and sort of am glad that it gets axed...e.g. that prequel to Battlestar Galactica reboot. I was really sorry to see Carnivale axed, quite a few years ago...it was a terrific series and I was wanting to see where it went. With some shows I do manage to bail after a while...including that one you put me onto, The Vampire Diaries! Then there was that show about the headless horseman...last I heard you were still watching it. Same goes for Supernatural, Smallville.
It’s interesting that you say that you can “binge” shows that you don’t like. I’m the opposite...I can only stomach them on a weekly basis, not back-to-back. Can find such shows too much of a grind to watch back-to-back. Can’t think of such a show at the top of my head, at the moment...maybe Dark Angel from waaaaay back. Or maybe Angel. Can’t remember actual shows off the top of my head at the moment which actually did show episodes back-to-back and I had to watch them like that. Braindead sounded like something that I might have interested in...not sure if it got screened here on FTA, which is all I have. Did see the movie Idiocracy and didn’t mind that...not sure how much overlap there is there with that. You like political satire? I think I mentioned the UK series Yes (Prime) Minister before...I think some of the people behind that are doing a show in the US...not sure if that’s Veep or not...or it’s the guys behind Yes Minister...some sort of UK influence with a writer or something in any case.
Hmm...your sentence here is hurting my brain! > “The first season worked, mostly, except they had some issues that were never resolved well and they aren’t things that because of how they were handled shouldn’t come up in this season.”
i.e. the bit after “and they aren’t things...”. I’m going to leave that there for the time being...not sure if I’ll return to have another crack at working on what it all means!...a lot of negatives in that sentence...double negative equals a positive? i.e. “they’re things that because of how they were handled should have come up in this season”? If not, I give up...for now…
Amused by your mum’s soap watching antics...whose DVR is she hoarding episodes on? If it’s her, I wouldn’t complain about it to her! Nowadays you can slip a USB stick into a tv and record to there, right? Not sure if SSDs would run quieter for recording or whether they’re less glitchy...I get the impression that normal HDDs can get glitchy.
Re overrun on tv...I thought we discussed before...here in Australia the popular reality tv shows always overrun...it’s a way of buffing up their ratings figures (for the next timeslot) and “spoiling” the competition. i.e. if it finished on time and the other network had a popular programme running at the next timeslot, then they could lose viewers...so let their ratings winner run overrun, which has the added benefit of not making the competition viable...who’d want to watch a drama say, if you’d missed the first 10 minutes of it or whatever? Re American football, not sure if I mentioned Gruen’s Todd Sampson giving a figure for how much game time is on the broadcast...some ridiculously low figure...I’d get really annoyed by that if I followed US sport. Not much different with test cricket though, I suppose...a fast bowler slowly walks back about 30 meters away, getting spit on the ball and rubbing it against his crotch...runs in to the batsmen and bowls...then slowly walks back again...just a few seconds of actual game play in all of that...six hours per day, over five days...unless you’re Australia at the moment...and losing in a few days. Weirdly, Australian Rules football has had the game’s quarters shortened...yet the matches seem to get longer as a result...I have no idea what’s going on there!
re streaming...you get captions on those? I like those. TV shows are available via console portals too...I tried one but it had no captions, so that’s not really a draw for me. Consoles do both streaming and downloads, I think...e.g. you can watch Netflix or whatever via your console...or something like that.
re your mother reading while she watches tv and being sarcastic about what you watch...wow...you really have some issues with your mother! You’re cracking me up! Wonder if there’s some sort of Norman Bates angle here!
Since you mentioned driving, I thought I’d share this article, which I wasn’t initially going to read but relented:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-seven-unofficial-rules-of-the-road-20161108-gskh21.html
re First, Second as names...I forgot the context of this...where do people name their children in this way? There’s an Australian golfer called Peter Senior...it amuses me to think that he has a son called Peter Senior…
re US grade...not sure if this developed from the US, but there’s the idea that every child should win some sort of award at school...which devalues the concept of “award”, I suppose...every kid is “special” or something...everybody gets a prize.
re Hannibal...I think I glanced at the book of that name and was really grossed out by what I read in it...think I read that the movie had that particular scene in it...but did read something about the movie softening the hard edge of the book...haven’t seen the movie in any case...oh...I managed to catch a scene in the movie which was the bit from the book which grossed me out...Hannibal on a plane...offering a little boy, I think, something to eat. Hmm.
You’ve never started watching a show after the first series? Well, with Doctor Who you obviously did! Me too. Actually saw an ad for a “new” Doctor Who movie in the cinemas...a cartoon, I think, because the original 1960s episode got wiped, so they tried to recreate it based on something or other. Cost $25. Way to expensive and I’m probably not that interested in it in any case. Do remember watching X-Files and Buffy after they had been running many years, I think...I’d studiously avoided them because they seemed like stupid American shows but they turned out to be classics.
Maybe some people like spoilers because they know that the ending doesn’t have something which will make them regret watching it? I.e. they’re checking to see that it doesn’t have a sad ending or something. Hate LibreOffice Writer...I had to go back multiple times to have “I.e.” in that form and not in lower caps, as the Writer kept “correcting” me! Sheesh...it just doesn’t take a hint!
Re hating when show runners misdirect an audience...did hear that on forums every possible outcome is canvassed on forums. Wonder how much show runners draw on ideas from there. And whether shows are improved or not by show runners stealing ideas from fan forums.
Re tv shows your watching...”Lucifer” has a similar title to “Luther”, a UK show starring Idris Elba...I was wondering if you were watching that show. Haven’t seen either show in any case. The synopsis of “Lucifer” you gave sounds really naff...like you’re making it up! Anyway, sounds American with all those devils and angels in it. From memory, “Carnivale” had themes of good and evil in it too...I was really into that show – which is American, I think – and was disappointed to see it axed. Got it in my list of great tv shows at this site. Speaking of British shows, which I was earier in this paragraph, I remember going to live-to-air tv after watching a recording, I think, and this British show was playing...had a really striking scene...a house in a wintry setting...from memory, a bloodied little boy is outside the house...the occupant lets him in...I think that the little boy then kills the occupant. Wish I could remember the name of the show...a drama of some sort...perhaps with a hint of the supernatural...or maybe not. Thought that maybe David Tennant, who played Doctor Who, might be in it. Couldn’t verify that but in trying to do so I stumbled upon this, which sounds like something I might want to follow up on to see if I can view it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five%28ish%29_Doctors_Reboot
re Convictions...that also sounds funny...either go to gaol...or run a government agency...hmm! Been seeing in the media that there is a problem in the US with black people especially being wrongly convicted of crimes and rotting in gaol. Is that reflected on the show?
re “Bull”, I was wondering if you were censoring the actual title but that hypothesis didn’t work out (you had the hypen after “Bull”. Wiki says it’s a comedy. The theme you described does describe a mini-series which I saw most of and was really impressed by, based on a true story:
http://www.abccommercial.com/librarysales/program/johs-jury
There was a link to a review of the DVD by a newspaper but it had a shorter running time...not sure what is going on there...maybe I misremembered seeing a mini-series? I dunno. Seem to remember being incredulous at what I saw in that story...just the injustice of what happened there...justice not being seen to have been done, at least as far as processes go.
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
Re Black Sails, pirate dramas...I’ve got a list of Australian tv shows on this site, both for dramas and tv shows...was surprised that Australia made some titles in this genre, decades ago...e.g. “The adventures of Long John Silver”. I think that that show was repeated for decades by the ABC and I’d seen repeats of it t then but didn’t, perhaps, think it was Australian. Not sure if you’re into the Pirates franchise with Johnny Depp...I saw the first one and go so little out of it that I never bothered watching any sequels to it. Do remember an episode of Mythbusters which was interesting on this topic, re why pirates used eye-patches.
Re Killjoys, you binged on S1 on YT? Generally when I try and catch up on episodes I’ve missed or whatever and I try and use YT, the content has been taken down or the video tells you to go off of YT to view it. Might have happened with US cartoons I’ve watched (I’m way behind on Family Guy, South Park and The Simpsons...two years, maybe...clogging up my PVR...might be better to delete series and maybe just by disc of Family Guy and South Park or The Simpsons, though I’m not so keen on The Simpsons.
re Ripper Street – I was wondering if that UK tv series I mentioned before, which I thought starred David Tennant and had that bloody little boy in it was called “Whitechapel”...it wasn’t, but that show does have a focus on crime and references to Jack The Ripper. The Wiki entry for that series mentions one of the series being devoted to the Kray twins, who actually existed. I remember seeing a movie on those twins many years ago, starring one (two) of the guys from the band Spandau Ballet...I still remember the seen where one of the twins puts a knife through a man’s hand on a billiard table, over a pocket. There was another movie on them in the last few years which I didn’t get to see...Wiki says it starred Tom Hardy, who was in the Batman and Mad Max movies of recent years. Saw also that both the brothers from Spandau Ballet were in that earlier movie.
re 12 Monkeys – I really rated the movie when I saw it years ago. It was based on a French (?) short called, from memory, La Jetee (spelling?). Saw that many years later...it was hard to track down. Arty film...nothing like 12 Monkeys. At the moment I’m so swamped with shows I haven’t watched on my PVR I’m choosing not to watch any new serials...if scheduling wasn’t an issue, I’d be viewing The Walking Dead...but...scheduling is an issue, so I might have to get it on disc...one of these days.
Re Sleepy Hollow – thanks for reminding me...I’ve mentioned this show previously but not by name. I remember watching the first series and I think that I bailed on the series before the first series had even ended...so it seems that are pain thresholds are different...you got sick of the show a lot later than I did. I can’t really remember why I didn’t enjoy it so much...just didn’t grab me that much or some such.
You have quite a long list of serials that you watch! I’ve tended to limit my viewing to ABC TV, the government funded network here and I tend to watch the infotainment type programmes that they churn out a lot there, like Gruen etc. Not sure I’d be able to handle watching as many serials as you do! I suppose that once I finish watching the last series of Mad Men and Californication, then I’ll be to watch other serials...or start whittling down my Simpsons, South Park recordings...pretty sure that my Family Guy recordings will be a nightmare...missing starts, missing endings, different shows in the timeslot etc...probably better just to delete and buy it on disc.
re most shows you watch having 13 episode runs...maybe that’s an improvement...your commercial networks used to have 24 episode runs as standard, didn’t it? I’m guessing that the early evening soaps that Australia makes would have runs closer to 52 weeks than 24 weeks or 13 weeks. Do remember reading a comment in The Green Guide (tv lift-out) perhaps, re a US industry figure saying that Australian soaps would be perfect fodder for the US due to the huge number of episodes made...but that was prefaced by the comment that there’s no interest there in those popular soaps that we make. Not sure how long the series are in US soaps like Days Of Our Lives. Closer to 52 weeks?
re living longer diet – I’m happy to take the scientists at their word that the diet has beneficial effects. Did hear Dr. Michael Mosely spruik his Five Two Diet or whatever it is called...the Catalyst story might have mentioned that and the fact that it doesn’t seem to have the regeneration properties of the diet that they focused on. Mosely’s diet is also something that you follow every week for the rest of your life. I tried the Catalyst diet and had no real issues with it, but I doubt it would work well for someone doing heavy lifting all day, perhaps. Not sure that I remember Catalyst reporter feeling “spacy” all week...just the once, wasn’t it? Well, at least for her exercise she did that day. re how long body can maintain that regeneration...perhaps as long as you take that diet every 3 to 4 months? Presumably whilst you still age, you will be “biologically younger” than your peers in the future. re what age you start this...presumably as an adult. Same way that it would be stupid to take cosmetics to make you look younger when you are a teenager! With younger people, I suppose having a healthy diet at their age would be more important than dieting in that way...unless they’re obese, I suppose.
re living to be over a hundred years old not appealing to you...me too. Especially if the economy is so bad that the government can longer pay pensions and welfare etc. I’m a long way off getting the pension, but that would be a factor. Some people might have a lot of money stashed away in their super or investments...if another stock market crash hits again...in an environment where there are no longer pensions, well…
re six minutes of exercise...if you’re inclined to exercise, I suppose that the “six minute” option would be more appealing – despite those factors that you mentioned – than the alternative. Not sure if that Catalyst story covered how much more or less effective the exercise bike was compared to running. By the way, did you watch that Catalyst episode? Or just read the transcript? It would be weird that you could watch it on their website but not on the networks catch-up service.
re allergies...my understanding is that we lump all these together and not differentiate them. i.e. gut bacteria help us to not have allergic reactions. Therefore it doesn’t matter what causes it, be it dust or pollen etc. Just remembered that I made a note on a related point on a very recent episode of Catalyst:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4570488.htm
My note reads: “immune system attack on wrong target = allergy > when this threatens our whole system = anaphylaxis”. You mention pollen allergies having a different bacteria deficiency, perhaps...maybe the key is having a well balanced variety of bacteria in your gut? Maybe you’re right in thinking that some “species” (?) of gut bacteria handle food allergies...but my view would be that other species of gut bacteria would handle things like pollen...but I could be wrong...maybe a wide variety of gut bacteria species do this, not a particular one.
Media Watch recently reported that Catalyst is being given a shake. All the reporters there have been let go...MW made it sound like they thought that it was due to that one reporter’s dodgy stories. It will come back next year in a one hour format with scientists presenting their own areas of interest. Not sure that appeals to me...one hour programmes? Too much, probably, and the problem of the content being interesting enough to make me watch every week.
re doctors bleeding patients...last I heard, using leeches is actually beneficial...whereas before it was considered to be a crackpot theory. Maybe it was Catalyst which reported years ago about fly maggots being hatched in sterile surrounding to be used to treat burns patients...from memory, the maggots only eat dead skin.
As for that reporter on Catalyst...personally I don’t think that that Wi-Fried story was that bad. Sure it was biased, but it wasn’t one-sided. Her previous story on statins, I think it was, was much more dodgy...dodgy “experts”...Media Watch pointed out that one such interviewee had some pretty bizarre views on things...crackpot theories. Thought that her guests on Wi-Fried passed “the pub test”...seemed to have relevant qualifications and even though her report was biased, it’s not like she excluded all reference to mainstream scientific opinion in her story.
re hoping that you merely have to inhale lemon scent in your nostril...either way, I’m not game to research this!
P.S. since you didn’t comment much on Trump, it made me wonder if you’re a Trump supporter, perhaps? I’m not fussed either way...his presidency could go either way. But if things go FUBAR...I’m holding YOU personally responsible! I forget which state you said you lived in...was it one of those “rust belt” states?
P.S. not sure if you said something directly related to this point or it’s a tangent on my part: there was a “gotcha” moment by the media against him...on MSNBC he was asked about Aleppo by a host and he said “what’s Aleppo?” or something like that. The host was incredulous that he didn’t know what the host was talking about. That kind of stuff doesn’t impress me because I think that in a lot of case it’s just a case of the person asking the question having been briefed before the interview on the topic and so they can pretend to have some sort of in-depth knowledge on the subject which they really don’t have. Was reminded of that story on The Last Leg, where Adam Hills commented that Gary Johnson had admitted to stopping smoking weed in May this year.
Word Count: 4,982
Talk very fast. Hope something good happens. Take the credit.
Re crowdfunding political bribes- Crowdfunding is supposed to be transparent, but there have been cases of people creating a page to fund, I guess it would be called, something, i.e. cancer treatments, baby supplies for someone who is going to have multiples, etc., and it’s later revealed the whole thing was a scam. I don’t fully remember where I was going with the more serious commentary on the crowdfunding to buy out the NRA, but I understand Gruen fake ads are meant for a laugh, but, for the more serious causes, they do make me think if some of the more absurd could be viable. I mean, have you heard any of the crap in politics over here lately?
Re finding Kimmel clips mean- Personally, I don’t like Kimmel for that very reason. He’s one of those “comedians” that it seems like everything he says has an edge to it that’s meant to either make someone look stupid or just be cruel. He has another segment he does at Halloween, where he has parents tell their kids that they (the parents) ate all of the kid’s Halloween candy. Most of the kids wind up in tears or throwing tantrums. It’s been going for something like six years now, and for what? My mother watches him after the late night news, and I just don’t see what people find funny about him.
Re mom taking notes on backup- Ha! There are some things I’ve managed to teach my parents re tech, but those are things that tend to be everyday used, if it’s longer than once a month, can probably forget it. I don’t know how many times I’ve showed her the short way to delete an ep after she’s done with it on the DVR, but she continues to do it the long, hard way, and has ended up deleting a couple eps that she hadn’t seen yet because of how she does it.
The winner for most ridiculous tech mishap, so far, has gone to my father. He likes to shop Amazon, but doesn’t do it real often; mostly for stuff like filter for the fridge, car oil, stuff that tends to be cheaper to buy in bulk and doesn’t really have an expiration date. The way he buys, though, like time in between orders, tends to be a long time, at least several months. So what he’ll do, is check the box for Amazon Prime trial to get the free two-day shipping, and then cancel the trial before the free month is over. Well, more like tell me to cancel it before the trial is over. Last time he did that, he didn’t tell anyone he did the trial. For several months, none of us knew we had Amazon Prime on that account, and the next time he ordered something from Amazon, I was helping and noticed the shipping options were different. He didn’t believe me when I told him initially, then he tried to blame Amazon for signing him up for something he didn’t click (may be believable if I didn’t know him and his inability to own up to his mistakes), and finally he accepted we had Prime. He keeps claiming he’s going to cancel our cable and just switch to Prime (because somebody he works with claims it’s great), but he’s yet to sit down and learn how to access it, use it, or even do a general search to see if what he wants is even there. We’ve had this for about eight months, have known since around September, and he claims it’s still superior to cable. I’ve used it, and no, it’s not superior to cable. I’m excited because I can watch The Grand Tour as it comes out instead of having to binge it in one free trail month like I thought I was going to have to, but I’ve searched for at least three TV shows and two movies I wanted to watch, and they weren’t there. No, five things isn’t a lot to search for out of their library, but it is the issue that those are the things I wanted to watch when using it, and they weren’t there. On top of that, father doesn’t bother to follow any shows as they air new eps, so live tv or access to a site that will play those eps for free because of an internet agreement isn’t an issue for him. I watch stuff as it comes out, and to a lesser extent, so does my mother. Plus, she watches a lot of home type sows, and none of those were available with Prime the last time I looked. I’m positive my father would hate Prime if he sat down and used it. He’s the type that channel surfs more than anything, and rarely watches anything start to finish. He always comes in the middle or gets bored with it and starts surfing again. With Amazon, or any of the online streaming services, you have to know what you want to watch and be able to navigate to it. I can’t see him having the patience to deal with that every time he went to watch something, if they even had what he wanted to watch. I could see him screwing up and ordering/renting different shows thinking they were included and then getting mad when billed for them.
And now that I’ve gone on a Prime rant.
Re hybrid drives- you can’t access the Solid State and regular HD separately, at least to the best of my knowledge you can’t. Maybe someone who is really techy could do it. My understanding is that files you don’t access very often get written to the HDD part, while files that are accessed often write to the SSD portion. Yes, there is some algorithm that determines when the info gets transferred over. No, I don’t know it, and I don’t know what happens if that file gets rewritten to the SSD portion if you start using it a lot again. I would assume so, but don’t know for sure. As for de-fraging, from what I understand, SSD don’t need to be de-fraged because of how the info is stored on them; something about not being a spinning disc like the old HDDs.
Re personal info buying a Mac- When you buy the computer, if it’s in store, you just give them the credit card and sign, so no different that anything else. If you buy it online, obviously you have to give them more info so they can ship it to your house. When starting the computer up, you register it, and I don’t remember how much of the info is mandatory to get to the next screen. I think you can fake a lot of it, though, so the computer isn’t under real info, like 000 XXX St. for the address, but if it was shipped to your house, it’s not like they don’t already have that info. I want to say if the info is real, they can track it if it’s stolen, though, or something like that. I just remember that when trying to get my mother to create an iTunes password to download the OS, there was no new info being given to Apple, which is what made me so ticked off about the whole thing. (Also, when the OS has to be updated again, guess who’s stuck doing it, again. )
Re Apple battery conspiracy- a drive soldered in place can’t be replaced. Not being able to replace the drive means if it fails or you find you need more space down the line, you have to buy a new computer. They started that a couple years ago, and it turns out the latest models are even worse because of direct connections to the logic board and some touch sensor they’ve started doing. The way I see it, any time a company makes it harder to repair or modify something, it is done almost entirely for monetary reasons. You can fix it yourself, or a computer repair place doesn’t know all the fiddly ways in, you run the risk of destroying the computer entirely, so either pay Apple to fix your computer (when the problem is actually fixable) or get stuck buying a new computer. With memory, boards, or anything in the past that was upgradable down the line, if you can’t modify your old computer and need a more advanced machine, you’re stuck buying a new one. Granted that may backfire from time to time and drive someone over to Windows, but obviously not often enough for Apple to allow for easy repair or mods anymore. And they may even sell more of the top end machines because why not shell out a couple extra hundred now instead of having to spend a couple thousand in a few years when the memory is depleted.
Re Yahoo- I didn’t word that post very well. I wasn’t blaming the government for Yahoo being crap. I was trying to apply for a job on a government website, which had locked me out without allowing me to answer security questions to regain access to the account I had on there. I had to create a new e-mail to regain access to that government website, which I think that account has been screwed up as well.
No, I don’t trust Google or Yahoo or Verizon. That doesn’t mean I trust some random people that have set up an e-mail srevice, either. I pretty much assume, because I don’t know how to really protect my online movements, that anything I post, e-mail, whatever on any e-mail or website is accessible to a bunch of people that I will never know about. The only possible way to keep anything private anymore, is, funnily enough, use pen and paper. At least it can’t be plucked off the net by someone sitting thousands of miles away. Do I like the fact that anything that appears private online can be plucked by someone sitting thousands of miles away with little to no effort and read? No, but at this time I’m not going to panic over it since there is nothing I can do about it. Computers are unfortunately here to stay for the foreseeable future. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been one to post much info about myself online, but currently very little of my time is spent worrying over that.
The list you linked to, something similar came up when I was looking for that new account way back, think when I was looking for a professional looking email. Bunch of junk I flat out don’t need to worry about. If down the line I ever start having to send info over the net I’m worried about, I’ll look into it, but now there are a number of sites that all have the same info and it really doesn’t matter, and they’re just as likely to be hacked if not more so. (I’m sure those ones based in Russia are real secure with not passing info to the Russian gov anytime they ask for it.)
Re political ads on YT- I think it was more location based than anything else, so yeah, to a degree Google is watching, but I’d never support the people I was being shown ads for. I think it had something to do with money and trying to reach a younger audience.
Re calling someone criminal in political ads- one of Trump’s main push points during the campaigns was calling Hilary Clinton a criminal because of how e-mails certain e-mails were handled. I don’t know all the details of the case, as it seemed like a bunch of bs and pandering to every anti-Clinton person out there.
Re Super PACs- in my opinion, should be banned. They always come up with some misleading name for themselves, and result in a bunch more crap ads in already crowded markets. The laws keep shifting here and there with the damn things, too, so unless you’re a finance person there is no way to really understand where the money is coming from.
If Trump (Pence) and his team have their way, it’s about to get a whole lot worse. There is a law on the federal books in the US that says if religious organizations want to keep tax exempt status (which I don’t think they should have any right to in the frist place), they can’t contribute directly to political campaigns, directly support a politician, or preach politics in sermons (though from my understanding there are many places that they already do this, just in language that is just vague enough to not count as being political). Trump was spouting off at the National Prayer Breakfast that he wants to do away with the law so that religious groups (in his team’s mind this should only apply to Christians) can create PACs directly supporting politicians, preachers can tell their congregations directly who to vote for, etc., all while keeping their tax exempt status. Just what we need in this country: more religious idiots in government that think their interpretation of the Bible should be the law of the land.
There are times I wish we could take all the religious extremists, of every religion, sect, division, etc., throw them all in a small area, and let them fight it out amongst themselves while the rest of the world got on with their lives.
Re Facebook echo-chamber- all social media is like that. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. More and more people can surround themselves with just what they want to hear or things telling them that their view is the right one. When a person comes across a person they disagree with, they tend to just insult the person with different beliefs. It seems like everybody is just shutting down and acting like toddlers instead of actually talking about anything. Like many things, social media was a good concept, but once humans are added to the mix, it all falls apart. You can call me a pessimist or whatever you like, but at its very core, human nature is not good. History is littered with too many human caused tragedies for me to believe otherwise, and people just keep adding more.
Re Facebook user base- I don’t think I explained this right. Facebook is not culling out its older users. What it wanted to do was create another platform for the younger generation to be without their parents. The problem Facebook was having was it was no longer considered cool by kids and teenagers because their parents were on Facebook, and it’s like some cosmic law: anything a parent likes or thinks is cool, a teenager will automatically hate. So, Facebook wasn’t getting as many young people to use the site, and they came up with the platform specifically for teenagers. It’s supposed to be very similar to Snapchat (I think that is what surveys showed the kids were using more, so Facebook decided to copy it). I guess the idea is that when the teens outgrow the new app, they’ll move over to Facebook to keep up with people.
Re Facebook as blog- I don’t consider Facebook a blog for two reasons. One, I think of blog posts as being longer. Most Facebook posts I’ve seen are no longer than a couple short paragraphs, and usually only a sentence or two. When I think of blog posts, I think of something with several paragraphs, about a page long, with only a short post like once a month. Two, a lot of Facebook is reposting things from other people or companies, and I consider a blog something that the content has been created primarily by the creator(s), not something that has just been reposted. It’s why I don’t think of Tumblr as a blogging site, even though that’s what they advertise themselves as. Anytime I go on there it seems like upwards of 95% of a person’s content is just “re-blogged” from someone else, and if you can trace it back to the first person in the post list, a lot of the times that person found a way to post without giving credit to where it originally came from.
Re ad blockers- I think if the ads weren’t so intrusive, people wouldn’t care about them as much. The other problem I’ve had is the ads will load in just fine on a page, but then the actual content won’t load in; you just get a continuous loading icon, wherever that is placed on that particular browser. Or the ads slow down the page so much it is basically unusable. It seems every ad nowadays has some kind of movement on it, whether it’s just flashing text, rotating items, or a video, and it just kills the usability of the website.
As for paying for news online, I think people were spoiled originally with the net where almost everything was free. The problem is, the costs were being offset by non-internet things in a lot of cases, or were included in something you were already paying for, like I think when some papers and magazines initially went online, if they weren’t publically free, the internet portion was included in the price of the print subscription. Then it became advantageous to make the online section free, usually in hopes of getting more people to the print side. Now it is a problem because print can’t keep up with the net as far as getting the latest news out. Instead of having to wait for the next print addition, a breaking news story is posted immediately online. Then you add in the idea that net access should just be free for everyone anyway, and it is a total mess. The internet and its contents don’t run on air. Someone has to pay for the energy and storage to keep it going, whether that be directly the consumer or government taxes.
I know, at least, Britain and Australia have government owned news agencies, but I really can’t imagine that here, especially with all the crap going on now. Calling news groups “fake news” because you don’t like a story they put out? The comparison to the book 1984 keeps going around. We’re not there yet, but only two weeks in and it doesn’t look promising.
Re Facebook as main new source- that is just a scary thought. I’m counted in the Millennial generation, but I don’t understand how most of my age group members can be comfortable with something like that. As a company, I’m not even sure how much I trust FB with just social media, let alone something as serious as real news. And FB claiming it’s not a media company … It’s called social media. Media is in the name. While traditional media has been seen as tv, paper, etc., FB has always been a type of media company. Now, they are just trying to take over a traditional format to make more money, with no safe guards as to what gets shared as real vs. fake, without giving a flying F as to the consequences, all while trying to hide behind a claim that they aren’t media.
Some of the info in the Guardian article I’ve seen/heard before, like the way FB was accused of surpassing conservative leaning/sided stories. Like, one guy in the article said, though, once they fired all of their human news element and just let the algorithms decide, fake news stories took off on the platform. I also think people who make fake news know how to make catchier titles, especially since they aren’t constrained by pesky things, like oh, facts. There was one story going around right around the election that said Hilary Clinton was part of a pedophile ring that ran out of the back of some pizza store located in DC. Some dumbass redneck believed it so much that after the election was over he drove from North Carolina to the pizza store with multiple guns, including an assault rifle and shotgun, to supposedly investigate it himself and rescue the kids. This was after the story had already been thoroughly debunked.
Creating fake news stories is the new trolling. There was a point in the Guardian story how a bunch of the pro-Trump fake news stories came from Macedonia. It seems like a lot of people creating the fake news stories only do it to further set people apart and laugh to themselves and with their friends that anyone believes it. Who cares what real world consequences it has as long as some moron who’s good with a computer and can do some flashy writing gets a laugh. Like social media, the internet is a good theory, and for some very basic communication elements, it can work, but human nature has made a lot of it just trash.
Re Amazon tracking- While entirely possible they know I’m related to my parents through a same shipping address listed, the most likely scenario is that my father was looking on their computer. Sounds like they do use web beacons or whatever they’re called, as I’ve tried to use the private browsing method when I was on there a time or two just to see if I could keep items from showing up later that way, and no dice. Once the “private” window was closed and I went back in, the suggested for you items section reflected what I had been looking at in the private window.
Re TV online- I’m pretty sure it counts as streaming. I don’t download it on to the computer, and when the internet starts acting up, I get problems with the shows. In general, I don’t have problems with the content that I do stream, but I tend to watch straight through, maybe pause from time to time. The only time I jump is if I’ve closed the browser for whatever reason before finishing an ep and when I bring it up again I’ll jump to where I left off. The thing I’ve found to be the worst are the commercials. You can’t skip them, but they seem to load in differently than the show because a lot of the times those will freeze, or I’ll have to pause the video to let the commercial load in and then press play, otherwise it is that millisecond stop and go nonsense. That does irritate the hell out of me, but as I don’t get control of a TV that often anymore, if I want to keep up with my shows, that is how I have to do it. It makes me appreciate the DVR even more when I get to use the TV since I can just skip commercials when I watch on a TV. I suppose that’s one good thing about Amazon Prime – no commercials.
As for captions, I don’t know. I never watch anything with the captions on. I find them distracting, especially on a small screen. Since they’re captioned for tv, and the tv always airs first, I would be surprised if it wasn’t captioned online. Also, at least in the US, I think there is some kind of law about captioning for deaf people or those that are hearing impaired.
Re QI- the way I saw it explained, the images they use on the screens behind the guests are copyrighted, and because of the way the images are copyrighted, and how QI pays for the right to use them, they only have the right to show them in certain markets.
Re giving up on shows- I gave up on The Vampire Diaries years ago. I don’t even know if I stuck around for the second season. It was an instance where they took the very basics from the books, and did whatever they felt like for the TV show. Characters were changed, backstories were changed, and at that point you really need to come up with your own damn show. I know they did a spin off series that had more original content, but had long given up on the show by that point.
Supernatural and Smallville I never watched.
Re binging shows- it isn’t that I don’t like the show, it just isn’t one I really, really like. Shows that I really, really like, I like to process, and I usually keep up with them week to week, whereas the so-so ones tend to build up more. I think for shows I’m on the bubble about continuing to watch, by binging them I can get more out of the story if I can see two or three in a row. Now if it’s a show I’ve seen once through already, and have liked enough to buy the dvds, I have no problem watching several of those eps in a row. I also guess that if I can’t get into a storyline by watching two, three eps in a row, I probably won’t care about the rest of the season.
In some cases, binging helps with some shows that have had to many eps ordered. Like a network orders 18 eps for a show, but realistically the main plot line could be covered in like 13, binging for some reason helps me tolerate filler better. I think it’s because I can see more of the storyline in one go.
Re political satire- Braindead is the only political satire I think I’ve ever watched. We don’t get the channel Veep airs on, and I don’t care enough to find it after it’s been released later. I have enough shows for now. In general, I don’t think Americans have done a lot of political satire shows lately, either that or I’m just not aware of them. South Park may be the most consistent one, but I’ve never really been a fan of South Park. Did see a story over here where the creators have given up trying to mock the Trump administration. Hm. Apparently that story broke on the Australian Broadcasting Show 7:30. Well, interview vid here if you want.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-02/trey-parker-and-matt-stone-say-us-politics-is/8236352
Hmm...your sentence here is hurting my brain! > “The first season worked, mostly, except they had some issues that were never resolved well and they aren’t things that because of how they were handled shouldn’t come up in this season.”
In one notorious case in 2001, the University of Georgia's assistant basketball coach taught a course on the Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball. Team members who took the course were allowed to miss class. One of the questions on the final exam--the only test that was given--was how many points was a 3-point shot worth? Everyone in the class received an "A." The assistant coach lost his job.
Been seeing in the media that there is a problem in the US with black people especially being wrongly convicted of crimes and rotting in gaol. Is that reflected on the show?
Re Pirates of the Caribbean (Johnny Depp movies)- I really like the first one, but it was also my first big, sort of epic, pirate movie I had seen. I grew up when big movies like that weren’t really being made. The closest thing would have been the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I never got into those three movies (The Hobbit trilogy is another matter.) I will say that I felt let down by the second and third in the series, though the forth was a bit better. My problem with the second and third is they just went too big. Two and three is really one storyline stretched out over two movies, and, like I said, it was too big, and too serious, and something wasn’t quite right. I think they would have done better to scale back the story and keep more of the tone from the first one.
Re Killjoys- No, they had the first five minutes of ep 1 on YT. I watched that there, and then binged S1 on the Syfy (the channel that airs it in the US) website. YT seems to be going through one of its crackdown phases where show clips and interviews are disappearing unless they’re from an official source.
Re Whitechapel- I know I’ve heard of it, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. Don’t know if it was aired in the US or not.
Re David Tennant show- are you thinking of Broadchurch, maybe? He plays a detective in that one that is investigating the murder of a boy in a small seaside town. I’ve seen the first two seasons, there are supposedly four. Seems like the third is going to air here later this year sometime. They tried to do an American remake of this called Gracepoint, David Tennant also starred in this, trying to do an American accent. That was canceled after one season. I think the problem they had was Gracepoint aired pretty soon after Broadchurch S1 was done, and while they were on different networks (Broadchurch on BBCA, Gracepoint on Fox – a free station), it just didn’t work out well. And Tennant’s American accent was not very good. It sounded like someone trying to put on an American accent, and from time to time you could hear a bit of Scot slip in on the clips I watched. Bit disappointing.
Re 12 Monkeys- I had all of S2 on our DVR and hadn’t gotten around to watching it. Then our main cable box died, taking out everything recorded on the DVR. I haven’t looked into if S2 is available online anywhere or not, and with as long as it’s been and not remembering about the show until I was responding to this, I doubt I’ll catch it up.
Sleepy Hollow- I’m still trying to figure out if I want to quit. It just started it’s fourth season, which is rebooting the series because the lead female decided to leave. Seen about four eps; this season is supposed to be shorter than the last ones. See how it goes.
Re number of series watched- I didn’t realize quite how many I did watch until I typed out this list. It doesn’t feel like that many because they aren’t all airing at the same time. It’s like right now only Quantico, Black Sails, and Bull are airing, and they are all on different days. Lucifer just had its winter finale, though I need to catch up on a few eps. I would probably watch a lot less if everything aired at the same time simply because I’d burn out. I can’t take watching TV for hours on end every day of the week. Maybe it’s the type of shows I watch. Even when I was watching TV live, Friday was like the only day that would be a 3-hour marathon with 3 different shows with new eps, and that was only for like 6-8 weeks at a time. Everything else tended to be 1 hour a night, and not something on every single day.
Re number of eps in a series- There are still some shows that run 20 odd eps a series, but there are fewer and fewer of those all the time. I think the only ones that do it are ones that started before shorter series became the norm. For plot driven shows, I definitely think it can be better to have less eps so there isn’t so much filler. For something that tends to be more procedural, I don’t think it matters since any sort of story arch that stretches more than three eps usually is background to the week to week stuff.
Re US soaps- I don’t know exact figures, but most US soaps like Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, etc. run new eps five days a week for most of the year. Sometimes if a major holiday falls on a weekday there might not be a new ep, usually because something else is showing in that time slot. So the total number of eps per year is way, way over 52. Looked at a few different ones on IMDB, and they don’t even bother to separate it into seasons. Doing the math for those three shows, and the average for each came out to around 255 eps per year since the show had been on. Guess they have a few days off each year, but not many.
The other thing is, US soap operas aren’t primetime shows over here. They run during the daytime. I think there are three channels that still have soaps on, with I think six different shows split between them, and all of those air in the time window of 11 am to 3 pm eastern time. Now, that whole block is not straight soaps. There will be at least 30 minutes to one hour of news and usually some kind of talk show, as well.
There are shows that have a lot of soap elements, like Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives (when it was on), and I’m sure others that I can think of at the moment, but those are considered dramas and are on in primetime. They run more around that 20 to 24 ep count per series.
Re living longer diet- Again, I want to see a long term study on something like this. Any doctor can come along and say they’ve found the latest and greatest diet. Doesn’t mean they’re right. It seems anymore you can always find a doctor to agree with whatever finding, even if it is wrong and not scientifically backed up. Anybody that advocates for starving yourself for any length of time, I’d like to see the long term data that says it is a good thing. As for the reporter, I don’t remember if she said she was spacy all week or not. But, from experience once it starts, it’s not going away until a person eats right; same with the headache. Like I said before, I hope whoever does this diet is taking time off work during their fasting time, no matter the job.
Re Catalyst- I usually just read the transcripts, faster that way. The link you posted, the vid worked. It could just be a matter of which blockers the different sites have.
Re allergies- So having good gut bacteria means something is broken down better in food, better absorbed into the body, and transferred to wherever it’s needed, and that is what helps with non-food allergies? I know with my dust allergy it doesn’t take much before my eyes and sinus start going, and there is something in the autumn that really can do me in. The argument would be with better gut bacteria those allergies wouldn’t be as bad?
Re bleeding people- I’m not talking about simple bleeding that’s done today, where a leech is attached to suck out bad blood when a finger or something gets reattached. I’m talking about back when they thought the body was made of four humors and sickness was caused by the humors being out of wack. Then they’d bleed the patient until the person got lucky and recovered despite being bled, or they’d die. Have a cough? Bleed them. Coughing up blood? Bleed them. Fever and can barely move? Bleed them. I had heard the maggot thing, too, just recently. It bugs me that I can’t remember where I heard/read it. Was very skeptical and grossed out until the end when everything came together and it made sense. Still gives me the shivers thinking about it, though.
Re Trump- not a supporter. Have never been a supporter. Am still shocked he duped enough people into believing him to get him elected. It’s what? Three weeks in and look at the insanity already going on. Then there are some of the idiots who voted for him going, “I didn’t think he meant it. I’m not a bad person.” No, you’re just a complete effing moron who ignored every bad thing he said or did, said give him a chance, voted for him, and now look what’s going on. I still think there needs to be some sort of test to be able to vote in this country. Just a simple who is on the ballot in the major elections and what are the major issues, if any. I’m sure I’d be vilified in this country over that opinion, but I don’t care. Was standing in line to vote on election day, a person was handing out free water, and she had on a shirt that had the name of the Democrat running for our state’s governor. This guy had had commercials running, had been in the media, and has been in the state’s politics for several years. There was a man in line who asked her who was that on her shirt and what was he running for. It is people like that who shouldn’t be allowed to effing vote because they clearly they have no clue.
On our ballots over here, they say on the ballot which party the person is associated with, and I don’t think they should be allowed to do that. You get people going in and just voting for someone because they have Republican or Democrat next to their name, with no idea what these people are running on or what they really stand for. And there are people who vote their whole lives like that! It would be one thing if information wasn’t easily available about these people, and for some of the small local offices it isn’t, and for those I can understand, but state governor, seats in the state senate or house, the seats for congress, for president, there is no excuse. At the very least all of these people would have websites with where they stand on different issues.
Politics is just one of those things I tend to get angry when I talk about it because most people have no clue, and don’t seem to care they have no clue. Then when something goes wrong or crazy its, “How did that happen? I didn’t want that.” Then how about you pay attention during elections to who these people say they are, and if they’ve been in the public eye, find out what the actually stand for instead of just taking everything that comes out of their mouth as gospel. Accept the fact that every politician lies, no matter what party they’re with, and they’re all just after getting elected again.
Re rust belt- no, I’m not in a rust belt state. The rust belt includes states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan – that area. They’re mostly around the Great Lakes, and is where heavy industry factories used to be prevalent in America. Then the factories were shut down and left to rust, hence rust belt. I’m in the agriculture area, so still a bunch of redneck idiots that just promise smaller government, jesus, and guns and you’ll have their vote.
Re “What’s Aleppo?”- This wasn’t Trump. There was a man named Gary Johnson running for president on the Libertarian ticket that this happened to. He put out a press release later that day admitting it was a mistake on his part. He was sorry, but admitted he was human and sometimes things like that happen. I found that to be more respectful approach than most politicians would have taken. If I remember right, at that point, Aleppo hadn’t yet become the big news story yet. People were talking about Syria in general, but they were just starting to focus on Aleppo as the worst of it. Had the news person asked about Syria as a whole, and not just one city, I don’t think they would have gotten that sound bite.
I think Johnson stopped smoking weed before May. He was running in the 2012 election and he had supposedly not smoked in awhile back, like years. Either that or he started up after losing that election.
But if things go FUBAR...I’m holding YOU personally responsible!
okay, so I didn't word it very well, read libra's post. Basically, because the new lead, Alex (who really isn't as interesting as Sam IMO) wakes up in the 80s and comes across Gene and the guys - who she thought were just figments of Sam's imagination - it still has the same WTF? quality of LOM even though the end of that show explained everything suffiently.
Then again, if you thought LOM was a B series, I expect that you wouldn't like Ashes, because it's definitely worse than the original. That being said, i loved it, and have watched the series several times. so far, i have only seen the first ep of the US version, I'm waiting until it starts on TV here before I get too involved. I will watch it, but I haven't got high hopes for the first few eps until it diverges from the original.
sausages, bunfight...and golfballs
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THEY ARE NOT DELUSIONS !!!!!
When the character gets knocked unconcious, part of them stays in the present but they are also in the past. It's like there's two of them.
Think quantum leap, you have to put the past right to get back to the present.Sam's body is in the future but his mind is wondering around the past.
Actions taken in the past affect the future. That wouldn't happen if they were delusions !!
Elvira mistress of the dark is the coolest woman ever.
DCI Gene Hunt (UK) coolest man ever.
dfle at no point in Life on Mars is it implied that the characters aren't real and if you would watch Ashes to Ashes you would see that they're just as real as Sam.
shareSorry but Ashes to Ashes is beyond bad.
Badly written. Badly acted. Everything about it sucked. It lost ratings week by week. There were 8 episodes and not a single good one. Even the worst of the USA LOM was infinitely better than Ashes to Ashes
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''Even the worst of the USA LOM was infinitely better than Ashes to Ashes '
I would disagree with that.'
I second that. US Life on Mars made me cringe I don't know how many times in the first 7 eps over everything from acting to how they threw stuff together.
Ashes to Ashes starts on BBCA on March 7th.
shareAlthough I watched the whole series of A2A I didn't enjoy it as much as LOM.
For a start, the relationship between Sam and Gene was brilliant - the way Sam's 'modern policing' style clashed with Gene's made for some great moments. But essentially there was a warmth and vulnerability about Sam.
In A2A, I found very little to like about Alex from the get go. She waded in with a superior know it all attitude, and I know this is because her character 'thinks' she is in a constructed reality and is keen to explain this to herself in an attempt to become self aware in what she believes to be a coma (or one minute away from life/one minute away from death), but she didn't come across as a nice person. It was only that episode where she and Gene get locked in the airtight room that her soft side started to emerge. By then it was too late - I'd already decided that I just didn't care if she suffocated!!
And what happened to Gene? He seemed to be a watered down version of his former self. Not such a Manc Lion more a Cockney Kitten!
that said, I'll watch the second series when it airs, mostly out of curiosity!
And I say I'm dead ... and I moveshare
i really like the US version, the 70s feeling in it is cooler for me, quite the atmosphere.
shareYes! I'm not american, but I love it. :)
*Signature*
YES, I'm a girl and I love science fiction. And sorry for my english.
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No, it is awful, apparently an excuse to give hack actors a job + money grab for a pretty good aging actor. Good thing stephanie jacobsen jumped or was she pushed out of this early early (this alone should have been a big red flag). The original was about the movie Brazil and Suicide, this one is about... just watch Fox on July 4 Virtuality with Ronald D. Moore if you want a good version about that.
shareI totally disagree.
This series took a concept and made it its own. t was very different from the original series and just as good in its own right. I saw nothing of Brazil in this.
I'm so tired of the club scene... So are the baby seals.
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