Bitty
See more funny videos at Funny or Die UK
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Tumblelogrolling
Not got one? Get one. Me and Towse gots one (each). So that's an endorsement.
So does Graham Linehan, creator of Father Ted and The IT Crowd, who also has a blog.
What more does it take to persuade you peeps?
Everyday Latin
Si hoc signum legere potes, operis boni in rebus Latinus alacribus et fructuosis potiri potes!
If you can read this sign, you can get a good job in the fast-paced, high-paying world of Latin!
Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.
I'm not interested in your dopey religious cult.
Noli me vocare, ego te vocabo.
Don't call me, I'll call you.
Nullo metro compositum est.
It doesn't rhyme.
Non curo. Si metrum non habet, non est poema.
I don't care. If it doesn't rhyme, it isn't a poem.
Fac ut gaudeam.
Make my day.
My World and Welcome... Funny Pages: Handy Latin Phrases:
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Sunday, 5 October 2008
The eyeballing game
See how good your visual acuity is. I scored 8.33, having royally screwed up the first couple of exercises before my eyes got into the zone. One or two uncannily close results. Maybe they'll let me be a jet-pilot after all.
The eyeballing game
Skill set
I've bolded the ones I can honestly say I can do, and asterisked the ones that make me go WTF? I don't even know what those terms mean, let alone how to do them.
The list is obviously lacking in many important areas. These are the kind of skills you expect from a man living in the 1940s, maybe. Or Dan from Roseanne. Some of us in the 21st century have substituted other skills for "splitting firewood" fucksake.
Feel free to play along.
On with the list:
Automotive
1. Handle a blowout
2. Drive in snow
3. Check trouble codes*
4. Replace fan belt
5. Wax a car
6. Conquer an off-road obstacle
7. Use a stick welder
8. Hitch up a trailer
9. Jump start a car
Handling Emergencies
10. Perform the Heimlich
11. Reverse hypothermia
12. Perform hands-only CPR
13. Escape a sinking car
Home
14. Carve a turkey
15. Use a sewing machine
16. Put out a fire
17. Home brew beer
18. Remove bloodstains from fabric
19. Move heavy stuff
20. Grow food
21. Read an electric meter
22. Shovel the right way -- which way do they mean?
23. Solder wire
24. Tape drywall
25. Split firewood
26. Replace a faucet washer
27. Mix concrete
28. Paint a straight line
29. Use a French knife*
30. Prune bushes and small trees
31. Iron a shirt
32. Fix a toilet tank flapper
33. Change a single-pole switch
34. Fell a tree
35. Replace a broken windowpane
36. Set up a ladder, safely
37. Fix a faucet cartridge*
38. Sweat copper tubing
39. Change a diaper
40. Grill with charcoal
41. Sew a button on a shirt
42. Fold a flag
Medical Myths
43. Treat frostbite
44. Treat a burn
45. Help a seizure victim
46. Treat a snakebite
47. Remove a tick
Military Know-How
48. Shine shoes
49. Make a drum-tight bed
50. Drop and give the perfect pushup
Outdoors
51. Run rapids in a canoe
52. Hang food in the wild
53. Skipper a boat
54. Shoot straight
55. Tackle steep drops on a mountain bike
56. Escape a rip current
Primitive Skills
57. Build a fire in the wilderness
58. Build a shelter
59. Find potable water
Surviving Extremes
60. Floods
61. Tornados
62. Cold
63. Heat
64. Lightning
Teach Your Kids
65. Cast a line
66. Lend a hand
67. Change a tire
68. Throw a spiral*
69. Fly a stunt kite
70. Drive a stick shift
71. Parallel park
72. Tie a bowline
73. Tie a necktie
74. Whittle
75. Ride a bike
Technology
76. Install a graphics card
77. Take the perfect portrait
78. Calibrate HDTV settings
79. Shoot a home movie
80. Ditch your hard drive
Master Key Workshop Tools
81. Drill driver*
82. Grease gun*
83. Coolant hydrometer
84. Socket wrench
85. Test light
86. Brick trowel
87. Framing hammer
88. Wood chisel
89. Spade bit
90. Circular saw
91. Sledge hammer
92. Hacksaw
93. Torque wrench
94. Air wrench
95. Infrared thermometer*
96. Sand blaster
97. Crosscut saw
98. Hand plane
99. Multimeter
100. Feeler gauges
Saturday, 4 October 2008
Beim schlafengehen | On going to sleep
The third of the four so-called Last Songs by Richard Strauss (not to be confused with the Strausses of Vienna), this is a setting of words by Hermann Hesse, and quite possibly the most beautiful song ever written. The words, which I’ve translated below with the help of Google, speak of falling asleep, but they are also about dying. Strauss wrote the Four Last Songs in 1948, when he was 84. He died in 1949.
The video is one of several available, and features Lucia Popp.
Nun der Tag mich müd' gemacht,
soll mein sehnliches Verlangen
freundlich die gestirnte Nacht
wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.
Hände, laßt von allem Tun,
Stirn, vergiß du alles Denken,
alle meine Sinne nun
Wollen sich in Schlummer senken.
Und die Seele unbewacht,
Will in freien Flügen schweben,
Um im Zauberkreis der Nacht
tief und tausendfach zu leben.
On going to sleep
Now the day has wearied me
My eager desire is to be received,
Welcomed by the starry night
like a tired child.
Hands, leave everything;
Mind, forget all thought.
All my senses now wish
Is to sink into slumber.
And the unfettered soul,
Floats in free flight,
To live deeper, a thousand-fold,
In the magic circle of the night.
Friday, 3 October 2008
Ook duiven | Doves too
Image by yourbartender via Flickr
I’ve been looking at the website of one of the mothers of some little kids at Boy Ten’s school. Jo Govaerts is a Flemish poet and writer, and some of her work is listed there. I think she’s pretty bloody good, and of course I'm missing half of it.
She won't mind if I reproduce one very short one, with a rough translation by me, from her 1989 collection De twijfelaar, published when she was only 17 (her first collection was published at the age of 14):
Ook duiven
Ook duiven kwamen eens
aan land gekropen
met de logge poten van
een amfibie. Misschien
wilden ze sterker
hoopten ze harder
geloofden ze meer.
Doves too
Doves too once came
crawling onto land
on the sluggish legs
of an amphibian. Maybe
their desire was greater
their hope was harder
their belief more strong.
Short shameful confession
Image by sarmax via Flickr
I’m not a nice person. All those things I did you thought were nice, they were all planned, thought-out, rehearsed. I did it to make you like me. I know what works and what doesn’t.
On the other hand:
Even fake kindness is better than no kindness at all.
Thursday, 2 October 2008
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