Me and Work

I have two main worries in life...one, that if I were to find myself hanging from a cliff or window ledge, dependent on my arm strength, I would be a goner. The other is that come the post-Apocalyptic world, I would be as useful as, well, tits on a bull.

I've had the second concern for awhile...since my 20s actually. Listening to the Indigo Girls...



...where the chorus "I've got to get out of bed and get a hammer and nail, learn how to use my hands" would make me feel so...uselessly intellectual.

To this day, I have that feeling. Oh, I can use a hammer...I just never do. If the world fell into chaos tomorrow, I would be useful in helping to organize people, or preparing curriculum for others to teach survival skills...but of no practical use myself. I'd probably be the first one eaten.

All of these thoughts are coming up now because I picked up a copy of the Spring 2011 Lampham's Quarterly, the topic of this month is Lines of Work.

Here's a quote from Robert Burton (Britain, late 1500s):

"A young man is like a fair new house: the carpenter leaves it well-built, in good repair, of solid stuff, but a bad tenant lets it rain in, and for want of reparation, fall into decay, etc. Our parents, tutors, friends, spare no cost to bring us up in our youth in all manner of virtuous education, but when we are left to ourselves, idleness as a tempest drives all virtuous motions out of our minds, on a sudden, by sloth and such bad ways, we come to nought."

[I blogged the last LQ, on Celebrity, which was a very timely edition., if you're interested.]

So, do you have any thoughts on work? And the apocalypse, if you want to go there....

Lori

Fame and Celebrity

Ah, the absurdity that is Charlie Sheen's amusing public breakdown...

My good friend Raincoaster linked to me on this video, I will link back to her...'cause while I might have had it cross my sphere first, she posted it first:



I don't know about you, but I've often thought about how little I ever wanted to be famous. Sure, you'd probably be rich, but you'd have to work to preserve your privacy...or let it all hang out, damn the torpedoes! Your public drunkenness, arrests, serial marriages, serial adoptions, drug problems, lust issues, cellulite or just plain bad taste -- all exposed for the world to pick over.

Or worse, you start believing your own hype, what your publicist wants the public to believe, what your sycophants want you to believe...and the last person who has the balls to tell you you're an ass drifts away, lost in the cacophony of adulation -- and you turn your ranting, couch-jumping lunatic self loose on the world.

I just finished reading the Winter 2011 Lapham's Quarterly on the theme of Celebrity...just days before Sheen's spectacular nuttiness. It was a disturbing delight to be inundated with heartfelt opinions, many of them first hand, on all the various permutations of what celebrity can mean, through time.

I still wouldn't choose it.

Lori

Batman and Bugs Bunny

What do these two literary (?) heros have in common?

Besides the Bs in their names...

Access. To stuff.

Batman has that great utility belt of his. Without it, he's really just be a guy in a stiff suit.


And Bugs Bunny has...well...his, uh, fur 'pockets'. From which he can pull anything he needs...usually carrots. Here's one of my favourites, where Bugs just happened to have an Acme glass cutter in his 'pocket.'



Check it out.

Merry Christmas,

Lori

Thrift or Desperation?

Awhile back, about a year after I met my husband, I found myself wandering downtown Vancouver and (god forbid!) thinking like him...

"Vancouver does not truly have a poverty problem until the pigeons start disappearing," I thought to myself, staring at a park full of the things.

But then this came to my attention, the most wonderfully random bit of weather news that Canada has ever produced:



First she is a normal person, having a conversation, but then she...

...and no one comments?

Welcome to Canada.

Lori

Suicide - an absurd death of potential

Today is a sad day for my sister's family... a long-time friend is being buried today. He was my nephew's first camp counselor, was close to all three of my nephews, and had been involved with their church community for years. He took his life last week -- he was 26.

A month or so before, the brother of my other nephew's girlfriend also committed suicide. This nephew is 15 and is now having to deal with two unexplained deaths in almost the same number of months.

The worst pain for those left behind must be "Why didn't I see?" The 15-year-old above is, his mother tells me, obsessively reading the texts he received from the young man hours before he took his life. This makes my heart break...how will my nephew(s) recover from this?

I'm sure they will.

Or will they? I think part of the problem is that we, the people around a potential suicide, don't believe it can happen in our worlds. Suicide is so distant from our own thoughts, how can it be present in someone close to us?

At work, we have a philosophy: "Err on the side of the client." Or in the case of suicide, if you think someone might be considering it, better to assume the potential is real than to assume it couldn't possibly happen.

Dealing with their own loss, our beloved Chekov, Walter Koenig, and his wife send out a similar appeal to those with depression or depressed family members (via Raincoaster):


Thank you for sharing.

And if you've landed here after searching 'suicide'...please listen to one more person say "Seriously, it will get better."

Lori

A bit late, but the absurd is eternal

A belated bit of Christmas cheer via microwaves:

Happy Christmas from AKQA

What inspires people to spend so much time on silly projects like this?

Lori

Linguistics -- Funny Stuff

So many English gags depend on the difficulty speakers of other languages have with our language. Part of that is that so many people, from so many countries, study English -- so we have a lot of different accents to make fun of. (But trust me, English speakers are not alone -- every language is made a butt of some joke, somewhere.)

The fact that speakers of many Asian languages cannot wrap their lips around the English liquids /r/ and /l/ is probably the most demonized of any pronunciation problem. I did my BA in Linguistics and taught English as a Second Language for 12 years, 3 of those in Korea, so pronunciation is one of my interests.

Simply put, English /r/ and /l/ are two completely different phonemes -- two distinct sounds. In languages like Korean, what we hear as /r/ and /l/ are allophones of the same phoneme -- essentially the same sound, used in slightly different ways. To a Korean ear, 'pirate' and 'pilot' are the exact same word. Korean has its own complexities, and if more non-native speakers learned it, there would be (and probably are) loads of gags about how we pronounce their language. Hell, they have 3 completely different phonemes for where we would have the /p/ and /b/. [Fascinating stuff.]

All of that said, one of the funniest (and poignant) elements in the movie Team America: World Police (2004) is the characterization of Kim Jong Il of North Korea, especially his song, "I'm So Ronery":



I saw the movie for the first time this week, and had to watch it again last night 'cause it was haunting me a bit.

Imagine my surprise when this morning in my inb0x is a video of a Korean toddler singing "Hey Jude":



So cute, my teeth are melting.

Have a pun day! (Koreans also do not have the phonemes /f/ and /v/, they use sounds similar to our /p/ and /b/ instead.)

Lori

Uh...Merry Christmas?!

Found this delightful holiday fun over at the Sneeze.

That alone should warn you.

What? Don't know the Sneeze? He's a delightfully twisted, intermittent blogger with a long-suffering wife, a precocious child, and a younger Lil' Sneeze who, so far, is not quite demonstrating much of any father-inherited oddness. (Do not read his Steve, Don't Eat It! series while drinking coffee, as you will laugh it out your nose!)

Anyway, here's a holiday video from a friend of his, Tom:



Oh, Santa!

Lori

Here's why I love the Blues:

Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino on stage at the same time...3 pianos, and a crew of backup musicians probably wetting themselves in excitement:

Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis
Uploaded by Hanvak

I'd use up a magic wish to have been at this club with a beer in my hand....would anyone join me?

Lori

The Piano

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at aniBoom

A lovely way to start the day...

Lori

Stationary and Wacky Fun -- 2 of my fave things!

From the guys who brought you the Mentos-magic...

Fun with Post-its!




(Source)

Enjoy!

Lori

Destino -- Dali meets Disney

More intellectually absurd than my normal head-slapping variety...but absolutely, almost painfully beautiful and brilliant is this trailer for a "Salvador Dali/Disney collaboration Destino that was begun in the 40's and only released recently":

Chef-d'oeuvre ! Walt Disney + Salvador Dali
Uploaded by LTT

The whole piece is about 7 minutes long, as the source points out:

Sublime !

Collaboration artistique unique entre deux géants !

Walt Disney commande un dessin animé à Salvador Dali dans les années 40 et décontenancé par le resultat jugé "trop original", le film initulé "Destino", petit bijou de 7 minutes, restera dans les placards de Disney jusqu'en 2003, date de sa sortie aux USA.

Lori

An engineer with 3 cats

Here's Paul and his buddy TJ, messing around with cats, in true engineer fashion:



"Like most engineers, cats are willing to eat the same thing day after day after day..."

Enjoy,

Lori

Rule #78 in Life:

(Source)

One of my favourite silly movies is Airheads...a 1994 rock'n'roll comedy. (Brendan Fraser's appearance in this film is merely a coincidence!)

And here for your viewing pleasure is the immortal Lemmy in a video with clips from the movie:



Turn up the volume and rock out!

Lori

Musicians...the same the world over

None can resist a great tune (by Deep Purple). Here's a Japanese orchestra doing "Smoke on the Water" (found at To Be Asian):



Besides the utter fabulousness of the music, the audience reaction is classic.

This made my day. I hope it makes yours.

Lori

A Pie Chart for Procrastination

This guy is funny...if a calm nerdy guy can be funny with a flipchart...

But he is!!



Watch all the way through...fascinating stuff you've never really contemplated before!

Lori

People...generally speaking

In the end, all people share basic similarities. I was an ESL teacher for years, and I always took comfort in the fact that everyone wants pretty much the same things: respect, love, and a good time.

And I didn't need the video below to be convinced that my friend 30-something media addict is:

"... a country-music fan who plays poker and cheers on the local ice hockey team."

I know her to be a witty writer who I can share a Viggo-fest with, who dyes her hair wild colours even though no-one sees it but her, and who is pining for a less soul-sucking job.

Anyway, this is a great video, lifted from her blog:



A tasty, stereotype smashing video. Enjoy.

Lori

Absurd in so many ways...

I feel like I'm stealing some of Metro's thunder, this is more his kind of topic, but I surfed over to the Nag, and she's featuring a great Rick Mercer video today -- how can I resist Rick Mercer?

The ZENN car -- "ZENN" stands for Zero Emission No Noise. I want this car -- and I can buy it, 'cause it's legal in British Columbia (wanna come visit, Nag? Drive mine when I get it?)



The absurdity is the fact that no one in Canada has heard of them. There's not a push on to immediately make them road legal in all Provinces, like NOW. Using one of these would reduce each person's carbon footprint by 6 tons annually.

I want one for my birthday!

Lori

Okay. Enough already.

(Visit the gallery of error messages, or create your own, at the Error Message Gallery)

I'm hoping one more post will do it -- drop the cat herding video off the main page.

But this is my last post tonight. I've got Irish Stew cooking...

UPDATE: You'll notice the Cat Herding video doesn't start automatically anymore. I took Nag's advice, and used a screen shot and a link to the video, rather than embedding it. Whew!

Lori

"May the Farm be with you"

Lifted shamelessly from the lovely Nag...



"Trust your peelings, Cuke!"

Gads.

Lori