Now that I've got my tickets, I'll generously share all the intelligence I have at my disposal

Eddie Izzard!

Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver (and apparently Victoria too?) edited to add: and Regina, Montreal and Ottawa.

Presale code is BEES. Go!

Meh, what the hell

Let's watch Eddie Izzard smash Craig Ferguson's furniture:

Programming note

Know what's fun? A gigantic urgent project that will take an extra five person-days per team member due for Friday sans faute, and this in a week that started out with the entire team having only two hours free collectively.

So blogging will be light to non-existent for the better part of this week.

On tap:

- Do Slavic languages' treatment of verbs of motion affect urban planning in those countries?
- What George Smitherman and his supporters need to do to win my vote.
- The argument for steadfastly clinging to your most ridiculous standards for romantic partners.
- O Canada: a translational analysis and a conspiracy theory

Meanwhile, enjoy Eddie (au masculin today) torturing his translators as he demonstrates his thesis that Rome fell because Latin is hard:

An Eddie Izzard reference in Ziggy...AGAIN!

This is the second time I've seen an Eddie Izzard reference (at 0:55) in Ziggy.

The first time was the one shown by Comics Curmudgeon here, and the relevant Eddie is here at 3:49.

And I don't even read Ziggy!

I love Improv Everywhere

Invisible dogs!

This would actually be interesting as an acting/improv training exercise, because you have to get in character as the dog. You see a pigeon or some garbage or another dog, what would your dog do? I think it would be a good way to practise committing to a character without the complexity of a human character that you don't know everything about.

State of everything

Craig Ferguson thinks everything sucks:



Louis CK thinks everything's amazing:

"Everything is amazing and nobody is happy"
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I agree with them both.

Happy International Translation Day!

As ever, using Fête St-Jerôme as an excuse to post an Eddie Izzard bootleg*




*(Dear Eddie: Massive, massive respect for your ever-increasing awesomeness and I'mma let you finish, but if you'd bring your tour to Canada we wouldn't need all these bootlegs.)

Perhaps my job is safe after all

Translation Party translates any English phrase you give it to Japanese and back until it reaches equilibrium.

Like this.

Still trying to find out: why is it using a mixture of two Japanese alphabets?

Search String of the Day

Tubals make you horny

Do they? Forever, or just temporarily? Could it possibly be because you stopped the Pill after your tubal and it was suppressing your sex drive?

(Search String of the Day concept shamelessly yoinked from L-girl)

Why you need Anglophone translators, even for easy language combinations

Click here

Acting

The first couple of times I see something on TV, I don't normally notice the acting because I'm following the story. But then when I revist something much later, I notice acting that I wasn't appreciating before.

For example, Hugh Laurie (i.e. the tall one) here:



And OMG Brent Spiner! This scene is a bit cringy out of necessity, but he's playing the role of an emotionless android trying to figure out courtship rituals. Okay, yeah, whatever. But it's so much more amazing once you consciously think that the actor inside this android is a real person with a sense of humour!

Today needs Craig Ferguson and Eddie Izzard being silly

(Non-overlap of second clip starts at 0:53)



If you know how to get these clips to stop pretending they're widescreen and fucking up the aesthetics of my template, let me know.

Me and My Llama

When I first saw this on Sesame Street as a little kid, I didn't question the plausibility of the situation. Now I desperately want to know the backstory.

Computer animation

A sketch from Important Things with Demetri Martin:



The animation is a bit crude, isn't it? (Not that it matters - Demetri Martin usually uses line drawings on a flip chart - but it something I noticed.)

But there was a point in my lifetime when that silly little animation would have been cutting edge. And there was a point in my lifetime when the technology didn't exist to make that silly little animation. That's really weird if you think about it.

Um...

Surely this is symbolic of everything that's wrong with the world today

Grammar Nazis

I suppose this was inevitable...



(Langlings: make sure you read the subtitles)

Blast from the past

PBS censors have a sense of humour

PBS is showing George Carlin. He just said "...your neighbour has a vibrator that plays Oh Come All Ye Faithful."

The censor bleeped the word "come".

Which makes it even dirtier.

Brilliant!

Okay, you can start calling them anti-choice again

They seem to insist

Edited to add: Language Log has some interesting (and new to me) information about historical/political context.

I'm back, I just have nothing to blog about

Here's Eddie instead: