Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
Update your journal with the answers to the questions
Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions
Questions from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) xsmoonshine
( You have been assimilated! )
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Quote stolen from Ebert's review of Michael Moore's latest spectacle film, dealing with, in his mix of political polemic, first-person stories and personal grandstanding, the root of all evil the current economic crisis with an American slant.
( Capitalism: A Love Story )
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To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, featuring West!Germany and GDR!Prussia:
And now for the obligatory crack:
(Note on the Chinese translation: one learns something everyday - apparently pigs are actually a symbol of good fortune in German, although IMHO the repeated chorus of "Schwein!" was probably meant to parody chants of "Sein!" in 1930s propaganda songs)
Also, Singaporeans above a certain age may remember a credit card ad aired here shortly after the Wall's fall, featuring two tired and mud-covered East German men tunnelling underground and saying in German that they should be in West Berlin by now, then surfacing next to well-dressed Asian tourist (Lim Kay Tong) reading news and sipping tea amid celebrating crowd:
East German guy (in heavily-accented English): Vi are from ze East!
Tourist (in Queen's English): So are all these people.
*close-up of credit card*, slogan "Travel the world with --card"
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...although to be accurate I had been trawling Youtube for various versions of You Raise Me Up (worse than Hetalia, I know, but).
Having heard about (but not actually dared to get into) Hetalia, I was tempted to follow the links from this vid, which led to this outstandingly cracktastic character primer:
After which the first slideshow made (slightly) more sense, and so did these other vids about Europe (with cameos from non-European WWII belligerents), the Scandinavian countries, and two contrasting vids about East Asia.
And another heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
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After using variations on I Still Call Australia Home as the subject header for various Down Under-related posts, it's only fair that I post links to:
The song, as used in a very popular series of similarly-themed ads for the national carrier Qantas since 1997:
Which combined several principles of successful advertising:
1)adorable (or at least tolerable-looking) children
2)recognizable music (bonus points for being sung by 1)
3)pretty pictures
And therefore was an obvious target for The Chaser (what passes for Australian TV satire) when Qantas outsourced part (49%?) of its engineering services to *Singapore Airlines* and Lufthansa:
And for those Singaporeans who remember the tuneless rip-off NDP 07 song whose lyrics sounded strangely familiar, and before that, the distinctly deja vu official Chinese-version music video of another National Day song.
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One month since my last post, four years since my first one.
This LJ seems to have turned into a rant/whine zone. I will try (or, as the Australians say, "give it a go") to remedy that with a series of entries based on posting suggestions from f-list from the last anniversary.
First up, a smattering of ( RL observations )
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Am currently ın İstanbul for European Congress of Endocrınology, workıng on unfamılıar keyboard wıth dıfferent letters and layout, so excuse the funny ı. Respıte from varıous happenıngs at work.
Back on 3rd May.
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Even if you don't watch Watchmen (or prefer the original), the opening credits are possibly the best of any movie I've ever seen, and gain by re-watching after seeing the film. Special effects, political and pop culture references notwithstanding, it dragged a bit in the last hour. Also, a giant teleported SQUID does feature prominently, just not quite in the same way as the comic XD
I may have been the only person who watched the Metropolitan Opera's HD transmission of Lucia di Lammermoor to catch Watchmen in the same cinema. Hard to decide which was more entertaining.
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From ambientlight and xsmoonshine
Fic meme:
1) DVD commentary: Point at a story, and I will babble about it. (not expecting any takers for this, owing to lack of output)
2) Write me anything from a sentence to a drabble (or more if you desire), any fandom you want and think I know. Identify fandom and characters if it's not clear from what you wrote. I will respond in some fashion -- fic, art, bad poetry, a mini FST, etc.
3) Make up a title for a fic I've never written and I'll give you a blurb, excerpt, illustration or whatever else strikes my fancy.
From ambientlight
Association Meme: Comment to this post, indicating that you'd like to play, and I'll give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.(optional)
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Finally getting round to posting pics of Paris, whittled down from several to just one dozen:
The city's most famous landmark, which, unfortunately I neither ascended nor took night photos of. Opposite it on the Champ de Mars was the Ecole Militaire, the backdrop to people strolling about, sunning themselves on the grass, eating ice cream and generally having unmilitary fun.
Since I had only 3 full days there, much of the city was seen from atop a sightseeing bus (same company as the red-topped one returning from the obligatory roundabout the Arc de Triomphe), the better for tourists to lean out dangerously over the tops to get a closer shot.
Another must-see was the Louvre, where tourist hordes swarmed in to see the lady with the mystic smile practically as soon as the doors opened. The two famous belles dames sans pièces, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo, being in relatively open spaces at the tops of staircases, had the virtue of being much more accessible (to photo-taking). Personally I much preferred this painting (whose title, alas, I neglected to record).
The bus made multiple trips over the Seine, passing over several bridges (overlooked by Haussman-era houses) to get to various landmarks within a limited time. Two of its three routes passed by Notre-Dame de Paris, of which the external carvings and stained-glass windows impressed me the most.
Other frequently-visited-sites included the Place de la Concorde (which, going by the photos, I must have passed at least six times in two days), les Invalides, and recurrent views of the Academie Francaise, Place Vendome, Opera etc, various Quartiers, musées, and the Moulin Rouge and Sacré-Coeur basilica (neither of which I visited, despite living on the outskirts of Montmartre).
I'd have liked to spend more time in Paris, but not in autumn. Perhaps Paris in the springtime...
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Day #7 of happy-making things:
This gem in the comments, from flemmings' link to the post on how numerous hymns could be improved by adding a particular phrase.
(In case of wonky browsers:"...I was suddenly snapped out of a rather droning rendition of Handel's Messiah by the abrupt realization that the entire choir was singing at the top of their voice, "And we like sheep! And we like sheep! And we like sheep! And we like sheep!
have gone astray")
Yet another reason to regret not singing Handel's Messiah in choir.
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For 8 days you have to post something that made you happy that day: Day 6
Being able to go abroad this year for HMDP and posting this in Adelaide.
Looking forward to 2009 - may it be a better year for everyone!
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For 8 days you have to post something that made you happy that day: Day 5
Rather inappropriate icon, since the happy-making is Woxin - flemmings' Woxin fics of the last several days, and xsmoonshine's Santa-hat!Gou Jian Woxin pic :D
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For 8 days you have to post something that made you happy that day: Day 4
(well, it didn't say *consecutive* days...)
Getting tickets for the HD-broadcast (almost a month later than everywhere else, but that's typical of living Down Under) of the Metropolitan Opera production of Lucia di Lammermoor, which makes for a much better opera in Italian, than a book in (almost) English.
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