Archive for March, 2007
PILOTLESS DRONE!!!!!
This is….probably one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.
Pleeeeeeeease listen to it!
Here’s a partial transcript, courtesy of Morning Edition:
Mr. Howe, I’m looking at the Monday issue, August 29, Page E6… It says “begins testing — Forest Service begins testing pilotless drone.” Mr Howe, is there any other kind of drone? (…)
Is there any other kind of drone, drone, other than a pilotless drone? Isn’t that what a drone is: an unmanned aircraft? Don’t you check these things? Don’t you supervise the subeditors who write these headlines? Don’t you do your job? (…)
Drone, drone, drone. Get it? Drone. Pilotless airplane. Drone, drone, drone — not pilotless drone! (…)
And here is a hilarious remix on YouTube:
5 comments March 28, 2007
strange
I woke up this morning to find that I had unscrewed the light-bulb of the lamp on my night-stand…in my sleep! As Nic would say: “Issues!”
7 comments March 18, 2007
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
A beautiful first book by Dinaw Mengestu, about America through the eyes of an Ethiopian immigrant and his two African friends, a Zairean and a Kenyan…Their interactions and comments are so authentically African, I’m enjoying it immensely. It correlates the American experience by Africans, ties into details of their lives. The small prides, the meaningful accomplishments, the struggles. Peppered with connections back to their former lives, statements that are amusing and profound, like this one, where Sepha talks about Joseph the Zairean and his Kinshasa chess-playing days:
“Clusters, and in some cases, surrogate families of young men formed around the game. Some were illiterate and had spent years fighting from the bush; others, like Joseph, were born into affluent families who had paid for French and English tutors before losing everything to Mobutu and his corrupt, bloated government. They had a religious devotion to the game, a respect for its handful of rules and almost infinite variations born, as Joseph said, out of a shared sense of gratitude for having at least one space where their decisions mattered. “Nobody,” he said once, “understand chess like an African.”
Am not done with it, but here’s a lovely passage, about one of the sweet moments of the book, the main character, a shopkeeper named Sepha Stephanos befriends a twelve year old force of nature, named Naomi who just moved into the poor DC neighborhood with her intellectual mom, on a sabbatical from her teaching position. It’s really a detail, a funny slightly wild passage about almost nothing, but the writing is beautiful.
“When I finally rang the doorbell, Naomi answered. Her mother had tried to braid her hair into a row of plaits, but it had come out as a half-dozen uneven, lopsided braids that erupted into a tuft in the back. It gave Naomi an oddly menacing look that somehow seemed intended. She stood in the dorrway looking like a lunatic and stared at me as if I were the man responsible for all the world’s frustrated desires, a fool who accidentally gave bad directions to people on their honeymoons, contemptuous but good-natured.”
I think what I like most about it, is that because it is written by a real African, it rings true, for once, in small dignified and subtle ways. It’s all in the details. I’m so grateful for that I could tear up. I never find solace in the portrayal of Africa in the media, and especially the recent blockbuster movies, like “Constant Gardner” “Blood Diamond” or “Last King of Scotland.” Even when they are profound and incredibly well done (“Gardner”), or even superbly well acted and authentic (particularly Forest Whitaker in “Last King”) there is always that untruth, that compromise that takes it awyay from its potential, and put at the forefront a love story of whites to make it palatable for the audiences.
The subtlety of African life is always missing, and that is what this book has in great quantities. In its quiet, understated way, it is a sort of “Lives of Others” of Africans and something I’d been looking for, for a long time.
2 comments March 17, 2007
This American Life comes to television…
Television that looks like nothing else on TV. I think, if I got Showtime, this would be my favorite show on TV.
I love Ira Glass. He’s my hero. I put his name in the pot of “Celebrity” we played tonight. Who else can get quotes like this from people?
“I grew up with Satan conversations about Satan over chocolate cake on Sunday”
“I mean, I don’t even know how much I’m into the whole bible thing altogether, you know. Dude just came up to me and he’s like, “Hey, you look like Judas”, and I’m like “guess that’s a compliment”. Soo, can’t really deny the world of their Judas.”
“How much can you fall in love with a chicken, there’s really nothing to fall in love with, but a pig, I mean, think about a pig, what is there not to love about a pig?”
“There’s not much to life except sex and food…and water”
3 comments March 17, 2007
How many countries can you name in ten minutes?
I did so well! I named 192 countries out of 245 in ten minutes (check the comments to see which ones I forgot)
One tip: Go with the one word countries first. People’s Republic of China, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, none of these worked for me, and I tried them at least four times each. SO….I could have scored higher!
I’m so curious to see how you do! have fun!!!! This was great! I think I’m going to try it again. he he.
4 comments March 17, 2007
