Monday, August 27, 2012

The Lock Is To Keep Your Junk Out

Most German apartments come with a spot in the cellar for all your junk. I assume that there are some theoretical people that use them for something other than storing crap they're not ready to throw away, but that's what I use mine for. I actually started going through the mountain of stuff, and what did I find? Some jackasses had actually been using my cellar to store their old empty boxes! When I first moved in, I didn't have a lock on the door (I was hoping someone would steal my crap). So, in Germany, the locks aren't there to keep my junk in -- they're to keep yours out.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

When Half-Assed Is Just Too Much - Art History Edition

Let's say you're the priest at a church in a small Spanish town. The frescoes (especially one by Borja, a 19th c. artist from the town) in your church are damaged, and they need to be cleaned and repaired.  Do you:
  • Call a university with a restoration department and ask for help
  • Call the Center for Borja Studies and ask for suggestions
  • Call the Catholic frickin' Church and ask them to spend some of their ill-gotten* funds on restoring or preserving the art
  • Have an elderly parishioner with no experience "fix things up" with absolutely no supervision
Obviously, you choose the final option.  The result?
 
 The CNN.com article compares it to a scene from the movie "Bean", but I think it's closer to the Seinfeld episode where George has to have his boss re-added a photo.  Either way, strong work, Spain!

* If you argue with this term, I suggest you read some history on the Church's activities between, say, 400 AD/CE and today. Then we can talk.  By "we can talk", i mean "you can admit the Church is as shady as shady gets".

Thursday, August 23, 2012

You Stay Classy, Lubbock

A lot of things have been said about will happen after the election in November.  If Obama wins, one Texas judge has the answer: civil war.  How was this discovered?  Because he needs more experienced cops FOR WHEN THE CIVIL WAR COMES.

In case you couldn't listen to his shtick, here's the juiciest bit:
"He's going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N., and what is going to happen when that happens?  I'm thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we're not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we're talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy."

Now, before you say the guy is crazy, let me say something. This guy is batshit crazy.  Ok, your turn. 

I forgot the best part -- he wants a tax hike to get the cops.  I guess Republicans support tax increases to fight Obama?

Monday, August 13, 2012

Bootleggers Perpetuate Stereotypes

I thought we, as a culture, had grown past the stereotype of Chinese people being unable to correctly differentiate between "L" and "R". Apparently those writing the subtitles for bootleg copies of "The Avengers" beg to differ.
 As you can see, "Loki" becomes "Rocky"*, and Thor is apparently uncertain** of his relationship to Loki/Rocky.


To be honest, now I want the bootleg subtitles.  You stay classy, bootleggers!

Thanks to Geek Tyrant for the photo & article.  Their full article is HERE.

* Adriannnnnnnn!
** I know this is just a bad translation of a great line, but it's funnier to

Sunday, August 12, 2012

You Stay Classy, Luisao

You can say one thing about Düsseldorf Fortuna -- their games end with style. After the promotion-relegation game ended with drunken fans storming the field, what could the 'dorf do for an encore? How about cold-cocking (based on the footage at the end of the clip, I think he Zidane-ed him) a ref?

To be fair, it was the visiting team's captain -- in a FRIENDLY match. And I think the ref flopped, which was brilliant. After all, how can a Portuguese player complain about someone else flopping? It's part of their soccer culture, after all.


For some reason, the ref wasn't in the mood to continue, and the game was called.  Fortuna officials, knowing that trying to send the 'dorf fans home without full game would likely lead to a riot, split their side into two and played a scrimmage.  Fortunately, this appeased the fans, led by chief hooligan Tobias H*.  They opted not to riot, saving it for the first game of the season and those bastards from Mönchengladbach.

Rumors that the Oakland/LA/Anaheim Raiders have offered him a spot on their team are currently unconfirmed. Though the Jets' and Eagles' official fan clubs have both contacted the jackhole in question to run a training seminar during their preseason training camps (that's what they call binge drinking in shitty bars).

* Name abbreviated so that he doesn't kick my ass

Friday, August 10, 2012

It's 3am - Do You Know Where Your Kitty Is?

Kerrie Anne Loyd, a researcher in Athens, Georgia*, had the brilliant idea to slap a small video camera on housecats to see what the hell they actually do all day (spoiler alert: it's 99% napping). This was mainly to assess their affect on the environment, especially songbirds. Shockingly (listen up, Franzen), birds were a minority of their kills. What did the kitties really like? Reptiles.  You can watch a presentation of her research HERE. It's worth watching the first minute just to see how excited she gets when she says "kittycams!" Even better, her enthusiasm for the word extends throughout the presentation!

Most shocking (not to dog lovers) is that ~10% of the cats "cheated" on their owners and sought food and affection from other households**. Other activities included fighting off opossums and dogs, eating road kill***, and drinking sewer water! I was especially excited to see the "Playing with a Skank" video, until I looked more closely and saw that it was a skink, not a skank. Sigh.

You can see the photos (like the one I borrowed above) and videos HERE. Personally, I really enjoyed the following videos:
As usual, I was alerted to this by the Grey Lady, specifically, this article.
* Or "Jaw-ja", to the locals
** For those of you who like to say that women are like cats, feel free to keep this in mind
*** You stay classy, Mittens
**** Anthropomorphism alert!

Thursday, August 09, 2012

There's Tough, Then There's...

Finishing an Olympic 4x400 relay on A BROKEN-FRICKIN' LEG. Manteo Mitchell heard it pop with half a lap to go (200m) but still finished well enough to give the USA a tie in the heat. He clearly was in shock as he said, "I figured it's what almost any person would've done in that situation." I hate to sound lame, but not me. I would've opted for the rolling-around-in-pain-on-the-track option.

I think after this show of toughness, the IOC should let him dope all he wants til the next Olympics. 

Book Review: Seed

SeedSeed by Ania Ahlborn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Spoiler-free -- some of the other reviews had spoilers in them!

A quick, gripping read. It'll appeal to fans of The Exorcist, Omen, etc. Jack Winter was haunted by a presence when he was young. Now it's back and after his youngest daughter. He wants to fight it, but how do you fight something you can't see?

I plowed through this in a day and would have given it 4 stars, but Jack's character never really rang true for me. As I read, it began to make more sense, but his (in)actions never really clicked. Hence, I enjoyed it and was compelled to keep reading, in spite of the annoyances. I think if I'd slowed down and read it over a week, Jack would've really annoyed me.

Fun, quick read!

View all my reviews Body

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Badminton -- Even I'm Not THIS Bad

Like everyone else, I was shocked to hear that players were tossed out of the Olympics for tanking. I figured, so they had an off game -- this seems a bit harsh. Oh, no. Check out the video for yourself. There's tanking, NBA-style, where you half-ass it. Then there's this. The two teams are BOTH trying to lose, and so blatantly that the crowd is whistling and the ref pulls them aside to tell them that both teams can be disqualified. Sufficiently cowed, they give a semi-believable effort -- FOR ONE POINT. Then it's back to hitting it deliberately into the net (or far long).

So, since they were warned and STILL decided to mail it in, I'm totally ok with kicking their lame asses out.  Not because they didn't live up to the Olympics ideals,  but because they were too lazy to make it at least seem like they were trying.


Adios, losers!