Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Just a quick post so Mom won't have to see Godzilla anymore...

Helen Mirren as the Queen

Caption confusion mangles The Queen
By Nick Squires in Sydney
Last Updated: 11:01am GMT 26/02/2008

An Australian showing of the award-winning film The Queen was unwittingly turned into a farce by woefully poor subtitles.

The captions were included because the film was being shown to an audience of the deaf and hard of hearing by a council in Sydney.

But the movie, starring Helen Mirren as the Queen, became a comedy of errors thanks to the oddly rendered captions.

“Buckingham Palace” appeared on screen as “Burking in Paris” while the question “did you vote?” flashed up as “dead in a boat”.

When a character spoke about former prime minister Tony Blair being “educated at Fettes", it appeared on screen as “educated the fattest".

The observation that “every newspaper proprietor has blood on his hands today” became “every newspaper proprietor has blown in his hands today".

The film chronicles the royal family’s struggle to meet public expectations in reacting to the death of Princess Diana in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

The outdoor screening of the film at the weekend was an embarrassment for Ryde Council.

The council’s Derek McCarthy conceded that the captions, produced either by a crude computer translation programme or somebody with only the faintest grasp of English, were bizarre.

“The copy shown did have some spelling mistakes and interpretations of the script which affected the experience for the deaf community present,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Originally posted by The Telegraph.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Godzilla Unleashed!

I have finally decided to wait and see what the @pp1e ebook is like before I buy the Sony.
So since I did not get anything from Wifey for XMas I got to go to Best Buy and pick out a game for my Wii.
 I picked this:
And here are some YouTube videos showing the gameplay:






So far my favorite monster Anguirus. When he charges he rolls up ino a ball just like in the movies!

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Lots of Snow = No To Munster Go!

Milwaukee is getting 12-16 inches of snow starting this afternoon through tomorrow and Munster is getting rain then freezing rain then 6 inches of snow so I am not going tomorrow morning!

I will be playing it by ear to see if I will instead go down Thursday morning and back Friday instead.

Update: Due to the higher amounts and later arrival time of the snow today I do not have to go Thursday or Friday either!

No cavities!

I saw my dentist yesterday and I have no new cavities!

Unfortunately, one of my molars in the back left top is cracked and I will be getting a new crown :(

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Calabash Music - Tune Your World

In our area the cable provider is Time-Warner. After they raised their rates for the 3rd time in a year, we dropped it and got DirecTV.
After about a year of that we realized we were only watching about 5 channels and dropped that too.
So now our TV is used for watching DVDs and playing video games.
I don't miss it much although I do miss the LinkTV channel. A commercial-free channel they specialize in showing non-US news, documentaries and movies. My favorite program was the World Music Video Block, and you can watch some on their website.
Calabash Music is their associated website where you can support musicians from around the world by purchasing mp3s of their songs and albums and the artists get 1/2 of the money from the sales.
Each weekday they have 2 free songs that you can download and listen to. You will need to create a free login. Or use the handy new widget I have added over there -> below the LibraryThing box.
I have downloaded over 260 songs since April of 2006 when I discovered the site!
They also post video over on YouTube.

Friday, February 1, 2008

I think I saw the owl!

Math problem:
If yesterday = 12 inches snow then today = ???
Please show your work...
....
....
....

the correct answer is today = 90 minutes of shoveling to get 1/2 driveway clear

I like snow, really I do.
I don't mind shovelling at night in the cold, clear, quiet it's very zen-like.
After all the other people with their noisy snowblowers finished and went inside I was pausing to catch my breath and I heard the owls again!
One north near the tree farm and one south by the woods.
I decided then that I had cleared enough to get the cars in the garage so I went and got the binoculars and walked up towards the tree farm.
I think I saw the owl up on a bare branch in a tree moving back and forth, but it's been awhile since I used binocs and couldn't hold them very steady.
I'll go back tomorrow when it's light and see if I was looking at a squirrel's nest :)

But....
I was down on one knee in a snow bank trying to get a different view of the branch and when I took the binocs from my eyes and was about to get up I realized that there was a coyote staring at me from about 20 feet away.
Coyotes are NOT small, as I found out when I hit one on the freeway with my new Kia in September of 2006.
This one seemed not quite as big as that one.
It looked at me as I stood up slowly, then it turned and ran off towards the pond, leaping over the snowdrifts.

I like living on the edge of the country, but I know animals can show up in the most unexpected places, like the fox that we saw several times walking down the road at night in London when we there in 2006.
We were staying in the Bayswater area on the north side of Hyde Park and see the fox as we were walking to the tube station and to "The Swan" a very nice little pub that we ate at twice.
Mr. Fox was too quick for us and we never got a picture of him.

UPDATE: I walked down to the tree farm this afternoon and there was nothing on the branch I was looking at last night! Owl confirmed!

I made in home from Muster

It normally takes me between 2 1/2 to 3 hours to make it home from Munster.

Can you guess how long it took me this week?

a) 12 minutes
b) 4 hours 17 minutes
c) 6 hours 23 minutes
d) 8 hours 6 minutes
e) none of the above
f) all of the above

Stupid Snow!

But at least it's better than a hurricane.
Or an earthquake.
Or a wildfire.
Or huge flocks of foul smelly budgies breeding in the sewers and then flying out of people's loos and infringing on their personal freedoms.

(The answer is C)