TGIF: Man vs. computer February 6, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.add a comment
There are plenty of videos on Youtube of folks taking out their aggressions on their computers. Here are a couple of my favorites.
The video that started it all:
Angry German Kid (a.k.a. Der echte Gangster, Slikk or Leopold) is a 15-year-old actor from Bergisches Land, Germany. He plays a character, Der echte Gangster, a parody of a wannabe gangster. This video is him overreacting because he wants to play a video game. Remember folks, he’s just acting.
And my personal favorite:
TGIF: A trip down memory lane January 30, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.2 comments
Here are two ads from Compaq Computer Corporation featuring John Cleese from the mid to late 1980s. I can’t get over Compaq’s idea of a portable computer. Ah, that brings back memories. Remember how we used to have to boot from a floppy? What? You’ve never heard of a floppy? Oh you kids these days… I think my dad still has some if you want one. Lord knows he can’t use them with his new computer, which doesn’t even have a diskette drive :-). Enjoy!
Best. Complaint. Letter. Ever. January 27, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, Random musings.3 comments
Since we are jet setters (I was just pricing a flight to Paris for tomorrow for a funeral but decided it simply didn’t make sense to try to organize a trip that last minute) I thought you all might appreciate this complaint letter to Richard Branson (the CEO of Virgin Airlines and Virgin Records), which was written by a man who flew from Mumbai to London. Trust me. It is totally worth jumping to Crazy Days and Nights to read it.
On another note, when did Bombay become Mumbai and how did I miss the memo?
The the impotence of proofreading by Taylor Mali January 26, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.1 comment so far
This fun little poem was brought to my attention on one of my listservs. You can learn more about Taylor Mali and check out his work at www.taylormali.com.
The the impotence of proofreading
By Taylor Mali
http://www.taylormali.com
Has this ever happened to you?
You work very horde on a paper for English clash
And then get a very glow raid (like a D or even a D=)
and all because you are the word’s liverwurst spoiler.
Proofreading your peppers is a matter of the the utmost impotence.
This is a problem that affects manly, manly students.
I myself was such a bed spiller once upon a term
that my English teacher in my sophomoric year,
Mrs. Myth, said I would never get into a good colleague.
And that’s all I wanted, just to get into a good colleague.
Not just anal community colleague,
because I wouldn’t be happy at anal community colleague.
I needed a place that would offer me intellectual simulation,
I really need to be challenged, challenged dentally.
I know this makes me sound like a stereo,
but I really wanted to go to an ivory legal collegue.
So I needed to improvement
or gone would be my dream of going to Harvard, Jail, or Prison
(in Prison, New Jersey).
So I got myself a spell checker
and figured I was on Sleazy Street.
But there are several missed aches
that a spell chukker can’t can’t catch catch.
For instant, if you accidentally leave a word
your spell exchequer won’t put it in you.
And God for billing purposes only
you should have serial problems with Tori Spelling
your spell Chekhov might replace a word
with one you had absolutely no detention of using.
Because what do you want it to douch?
It only does what you tell it to douche.
You’re the one with your hand on the mouth going clit, clit, clit.
It just goes to show you how embargo
one careless clit of the mouth can be.
Which reminds me of this one time during my Junior Mint.
The teacher read my entire paper on A Sale of Two Titties
out loud to all of my assmates.
I’m not joking, I’m totally cereal.
It was the most humidifying experience of my life,
being laughed at pubically.
So do yourself a flavor and follow these two Pisces of advice:
One: There is no prostitute for careful editing.
And three: When it comes to proofreading,
the red penis your friend.
TGIF: Grammar bullies January 23, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.2 comments
One of my pet peeves is people putting an apostrophe to pluralize something like CD’s or 1980’s <shudder>, but I had to chuckle at his comments about Lynne Truss, the author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. I happen to like her book, and I imagine you do as well. But then again I also love The Deluxe Transitive Vampire and The New Well-Tempered Sentence by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. As translators we can’t help but become Grammar Bullies. I hope you enjoy this – and hope you can understand what the dudes in the video clip are saying, because I was totally at a loss. It’s still a cute little clip.
TGIF: Punctuation Police January 23, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.1 comment so far
Come on, admit it… don’t you sometimes wish you could do this to language offenders 🙂 ?
TGIF: Some more Victor Borge brilliance January 16, 2009
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OK, now that I’ve gotten started watching Victor Borge videos on YouTube I can’t stop. Here are a couple more showing off his talent for humor and classical piano.
The Muppet Show was a “don’t miss” show for me when I was growing up. The Muppet Show was a television program featuring a cast of Muppets that was produced by Jim Henson and his team of Muppeteers from 1976 to 1981. The idea behind The Muppet Show was that the Muppets had a weekly show that would have famous human guest stars in a kind of vaudeville theater atmosphere.
Here is Victor Borge playing Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and trading puns with my favorite Muppet of all-time, Rolf the Dog. Since I was learning how to play the piano at that time the show aired Rolf was a natural choice for me.
And here he is performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Bobby Benson and the Baby Band.
And last but not least, here he is performing the William Tell Overture backwards (from “The Best of Borge”).
TGIF: Victor Borge and Phonetic Punctuation January 16, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in TGIF.add a comment
Sorry to those of you who subscribe with a reader. I changed my focus mid-post and the title didn’t jibe with the content of the post, which I didn’t notice until I had already published it. So I ended up deleting the entire post and reposting it here. This is without a doubt my favorite TGIF video subject so far. I hope you like it too.
Corinne at Thoughts on Translation got on my case today because I hadn’t posted a video. I took today off after finishing a big translation yesterday and was going to skip it, but I apparently can’t disappoint my fans of TGIF. 🙂 Here is an oldie but goodie – Victor Borge. My apologies for not posting sooner.
Victor Borge is a Danish-American entertainer whose nicknames were the Clown Prince of Denmark and the Great Dane. He is also a phenomenal pianist. His act blended comedy and piano playing. He was also outspoken against the Nazis. He escaped the Nazis because he was playing a concert in Switzerland. He escaped to Finland and, according to his Wikipedia entry, “traveled to America on “the last passenger ship that made it out of Europe prior to the war.” He died in December 2000 in Greenwich, Connecticut, after more than 75 years of entertaining.
He is most famous for his phonetic punctuation bit. I remember watching him on The Electric Company and Sesame Street as a child. He is absolutely brilliant. Enjoy!
And here is a variation on the classic with one of my favorite singers of all time, Dean Martin.
How I feel today January 13, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.1 comment so far
I don’t know about you, but I feel like a truck hit me this morning. Don’t you just hate days when you feel like Adam in the above comic strip?
TGIF: Lewis Black on Bad Language January 10, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.add a comment
OK, so technically it isn’t Friday anymore, but most of you don’t read this on Friday anyway. I’ve been fighting the post-holiday malaise, so it’s been hard to motivate myself to sit at the computer. Luckily business picked up today, so I look forward to being back to normal next week.
Here is a little comedy bit on bad language by Lewis Black from his Red, White & Screwed comedy show. For those of you who don’t know him he is a rather caustic and cranky comedian who focuses mainly on politics. No politician is safe, regardless of their political affiliation. I don’t normally feature politics here, but all politicians are his targets so there isn’t any bias.
Some of the highlights from this show are:
“Dick Cheney. And that’s all I’ve got to say. Isn’t it great that we’ve reached that point? You don’t even have to say Dick Cheney, the vice president who shot his friend in the face. …
“The last year and a half has by far been the toughest time to be a comedian. It’s just become more and more difficult. I just can’t keep up. … It used to be easy. There used to be one or two things that happened in a week. … I don’t even have a ports of Dubai joke and we’re on to immigration. You tell me how we’re going to catch 11 million people. … And build a fence that’s 700 miles long? A fence that would basically be the distance from Washington to Chicago. We’re going to build that fence and then it’s going to take Congress five years to decide what color to paint it. We’re going to build a fence that’s 700 miles long and we couldn’t build levees in New Orleans?”
“About six months ago, I was home alone watching the president speak on television and … realized that one of us was nuts. And for the first time in my life, it wasn’t me.”
“It’s not like I’m saying Kerry would have been any better. Let’s face it. When you when into that voting booth, you had a choice between two bowls of shit. The only difference was the smell. How did you Democrats find Kerry? What’s the matter with you people? … The first time I heard him speak, I thought … ‘I don’t have enough bread crumbs to get me home.’ The fact of the matter is the Democrats not being able to find somebody to defeat George Bush is beyond belief. It’s stunning. It would be like finding a normal person who would lose in the Special Olympics.”
Enjoy!
Musings from an overworked translator 