further tales of George

A couple of weeks ago we were walking George in the local woods and as you know he likes to meet the local wildlife.
There was a man with two dogs, but he wasn't walking his dogs.
The dogs were just sitting nearby, waiting.
Because the man was busy walking his crow.
Yes, that was CROW.

playing favourites

This week the movie quiz is all about films that I have given a rating of 3 /10 or less.
Name the film from the clues.

update- some answers
1. Halle Berry accepted the Golden Raspberry Award she 'won' for this film herself.
In a mystical twist of fate, she is transformed into a woman with the strength, speed, agility and ultra-keen senses of a cat. With her newfound prowess and feline intuition, Patience becomes ...? aunty and cristin got - Catwoman

2. Over 150 gallons of blood were used in the making of the movie, nearly three times the amount used on director Eli Roth's first film. The trailers bill the movie as "inspired by true events". Eli Roth says that he found a Thai website that advertised itself as a "murder vacation," offering users the chance to torture and kill someone for the price of $10,000. Roth later showed the site to Quentin Tarantino and the two developed the idea for the film. Tarantino and Roth said later on an Icelandic talk show that they have no idea if the website was real or not.
steve got- Hostel
3. Marisa Ventura is a single mother born and bred in the boroughs of New York City, who works as a maid in a first-class Manhattan hotel. By a twist of fate and mistaken identity, Marisa meets Christopher Marshall, a handsome heir to a political dynasty, who believes that she is a guest at the hotel.
aunty and cristin got -Maid in Manhattan
4. Orin Boyd (Steven Seagal) is a Detroit cop who doesn't follow rules. After he saved the Vice President by violating every order he received he is transferred to one of the worst precincts in the city. There he quickly encounters some corrupt cops selling heroin to drug dealers. The problem is, it's very difficult to tell who is the bad guy and who you can trust.
Erik (and steve) got- Exit Wounds
5. In a 2000 interview, Sandra Bullock jokingly referred to this movie as "the biggest piece of crap ever made." Keanu Reeves turned down the movie to go on tour with his band Dogstar.
The tagline for this 1997 sequel is -As the stakes get higher, the ride gets even faster.
aunty and cristin got - Speed 2 Cruise Control
6. This 2001 stinker stars Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski, has the tagline -He heard there was wildlife in L.A. He didn't know how wild. and starts with crocodile hunting has been made illegal; therefore Mick has been reduced to wrestling the animals for the entertainment of tourists, having as his rival in the business another Outback survivalist named Jacko. When an opportunity comes for Sue to become Los Angeles bureau chief of a newspaper owned by her father, Mick and family cross the Pacific to California.
aunty got -Crocodile Dundee 3

7. This 2004 waste of 91 minutes stars Ashley Olsen, Mary-Kate Olsen and Eugene Levy. All you need to know is the plot concerns one day in New York City, as Jane Ryan (Ashley Olsen) tries out for an overseas college program and her sister Roxy (Mary-Kate Olsen) schemes to meet her favorite punk rockers, a series of mishaps throws their day into chaos. In order for them both to accomplish their goals, the normally adversarial sisters decide to unite against the forces around them.
steve got -New York Minute

8. Sylvester Stallone is Judge, Jury, AND Executioner in this 1995 junker set in the year is 2139. The Planet Earth has changed into a virtually uninhabitable place called the "Cursed Earth". All of the Earth's population have crowded into the cities across the planet, now known as "Mega Cities". The crimes in these "Mega cities" became so violent and so powerful, that the regular justice system was powerless to contain, then it collapsed completely. But, a new Justice System came from the ashes, They were 3 justice systems in 1 (Police, Jury and executioner), they were called "Judges".
aunty and cristin got - Judge Dredd

9. This film won five Razzies, including worst picture, worst actor and worst director. Tom Green showed up to the ceremony to pick up his awards. It's classified as a comedy and starts out with 'Gordy' being told quite correctly that his cartoon ideas are stupid and make no sense, he decides to move back home and rethink his future. Freddy is his brother. Really that's all you're getting as I can't think about it any more.
steve got - Freddy Got Fingered

now this really is lost in translation

I've been playing with babel fish translator this week.
What I found is that I can type some text in and translate it into a bunch of different languages. Fair enough that's what's it's for I can hear both dear readers think, you ain't so clever you know.
The fun part is translating it back to English again.
So, a phrase like- the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, into Portuguese becomes

a raposa marrom rápida saltou sobre o cão preguiçoso
and then back to English becomes:
the fast brown fox jumped on the sluggish dog.

Or this quote from
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
I'm sorry, I was trying to impress you. I don't know what it means. I'll be honest, I don't think anyone knows what it means anymore. Scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago.
into Korean:
I' 유감스러웠던 m, 나는 당신을 감명주는 것을 시도하고 있었다. I don' t는 의미하는 무슨을 알고 있다. I' ll는 정직하다, I don' t는 더 이상 의미하는 무슨을 누군가가 알고 있다는 것을 생각한다. 학자는 번역이 전에 년의 분실된 수백이었다는 것을 유지한다.
and then from Korean to English:
I' Sensibility the m is, you the impression week was attempting the thing. I don' t the low of meaning is knowing. I' ll is honest, I don' t any more under meaning who is knowing thinks the thing. Scholar maintains hundreds was things where the translation year is lossed before.


I know it's not big or clever but I found it amusing.
"don't judge me".

summertime and the livin' is... soggy

It's the middle of August so naturally this week's film quiz features films which feature rain.
Name the film from the picture.
Update - some answers
1.












2.














3.




















4.






cristin and aunty got -The Lady in the Water












5.







cristin and aunty got- Hard Rain










6.





aunty got- V for Vendetta








7.







cristin and aunty got - Spiderman







8.






cristin and aunty got - Four Weddings and a Funeral

memories

I remember, many years ago, watching Starsky and Hutch on TV, when just occasionally the episode would be a little more complicated than usual. Somehow Huggy wouldn't be able to tell them who did it or the bad guy wasn't in when they went round or maybe there were more empty cardboard boxes in the alley to drive through, whatever, there was a moment in the program when I thought "uh oh, there is no way they can finish all this in 5 minutes.....it's going to be a 'To Be Continued' episode". No one liked the To Be Continued episodes, it seemed like forever to wait a week when you're a kid, and the second week they always wasted ages on the catch-up when they should have been sliding across the car and driving through cardboard boxes.
Why am I telling you this?
Because you should be getting that feeling of To Be Continued dread about now.
Time for the Where The Feck is Amanda picture!

Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.

For reasons I don't really want to get into here the film quiz this week is all about friends.
Name the film from the quote.

1. Remember, Bruce! Fish are friends, not food!
aunty got - Finding Nemo


2. You could argue he'd done it to curry favor with the guards. Or, maybe make a few friends among us cons. Me, I think he did it just to feel normal again, if only for a short while.
aunty got -Shawshank Redemption


3. Medium? Why sir, did you know that for a mere 25 cents more you can purchase a large beverage? And you know... I'm only telling you this because we're such good friends: Medium is really only for suckers who don't know the concept of value.



4. Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning.
aunty got - Trainspotting



5. I wonder if the three of us would've been friends in real life. Not as brothers, but as people.



6. Good morning everybody, this is a robbery. Now if nobody loses their head, nobody will lose their head. Now Simon says everybody lay down on the floor, except you sir. You'll have a story to tell your friends, or a tag on your toe, it's your decision, now you take this bag and empty the cash register into it.
citizen 146 got - Pulp Fiction


7. Don't you ever talk about my friends. You don't know any of my friends. You don't look at any of my friends. And you certainly wouldn't condescend to speak to any of my friends. So you just stick to the things you know: shopping, nail polish, your father's BMW, and your poor, rich drunk mother in the Caribbean.



8. Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They're single-serving friends.
aunty and cristin got - Fight Club


9. I don' think so. You know one day your going to wake up and realize that you no longer have a brother. And you no longer have any friends. And on that day, I'm gonna be front and center laughing my fucking ass off.



10. Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends.



11. You CANNOT make friends with the rock stars. That's what's important. If you're a rock journalist - first, you will never get paid much. But you will get free records from the record company. And they'll buy you drinks, you'll meet girls, they'll try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs... I know. It sounds great. But they are not your friends. These are people who want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of the rock stars, and they will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it.



12. So I guess this is where I tell you what I learned - my conclusion, right? Well, my conclusion is: Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time. It's just not worth it. Derek says it's always good to end a paper with a quote. He says someone else has already said it best. So if you can't top it, steal from them and go out strong. So I picked a guy I thought you'd like. 'We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.'

Lost in Translation

...and then we moved back to England from Canada and I had a whole new set of stuff to miss.
I like distances in kilometers instead of miles, because as a friend said 'it means you get there quicker'.
I miss having a clean, safe underground system. Or 'tube' as people used to like saying to me, forgetting that that's only in London.
and I'm telling you, I'm missing the Canadian weather. The joke/cliche here in England is if you don't like the weather just wait 10 minutes or go 10 miles, is just not that funny. I took a photograph of the huge hail stones a couple of weeks ago. This time last year I had a tan. Me, a tan. A real one, not from a bottle. To most people this probably doesn't sound like a big deal but for me, big deal. I went on holiday to Greece a few years ago and when we got off the return flight the people waiting to board the plane were more tan than me.
I miss the Canadian National Anthem and the fact that people actually sing it . Not all the time you understand, like in the supermarket or doing the gardening, but at sporting events and other apt occasions.
And just when there was a chance of my french improving I move back here and there is no dual language on stuff.
As usual there is the things I don't miss. I won't miss Tim's coffee. Sorry but Tim Hortons coffee is terrible. I know to Canadians this is unholy talk, but the stuff is awful.
I wont miss hockey, yet more sacreligious talk! A long time ago in these very pages I wrote about hockey. My opinion hasn't changed.
And I most surely do not miss the DVP. Dear, lovely people of Toronto, there are other roads. These other roads go to the same places as the DVP - but quicker, because everyone in Toronto just uses the DVP.
So that's it. The moves and misses so far.
I'm not moving again.

sine qua non

There were things I missed when I moved from Ireland to England, but then I moved from England to Canada and guess what?
Canada is a great country but I had even more crisp related problems. First off, they don't have cheese and onion flavour as routine. And then there is the pack size. You know those silver heat reflective things they give to runners when they finish a race? When the runners are finished with those they are sealed down the sides and made into chip packets.
Canadian content refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from Canada. What this means is that it takes a long time to find a decent radio station. Far too much Rush and other 70's rockers. When I did finally find a good station the Canadian content rule meant the same song would be played 32 times a day. I never thought I miss Radio 1 but there you go.
I missed the variety and price of wine in England. There was less choice and what there was was much more expensive than in England, something to do with taxes I think. I missed double gloucester cheese.
Most of this was balanced by the things I didn't miss about England. Like chavs. I saw no chavs in Toronto. Really, none. I didn't miss people thinking I was Canadian, like almost eveyone I ever met in England and I didn't miss being called 'love' by strangers.
Millions of pounds every year are spent on travel guide books and television shows but none of them ever tell you the good stuff like this you know. You can't buy this advice folks and really you can never have enough shoes, Thornton's chocolate or life lessons.

part 6 in a seemingly endless series

Last weeks was too difficult, this week, got to be easier right?

Go on, from the picture, Where the Feck is Amanda?

Can you taste the Monday Movie Quiz?

First we had smell, then last week it was sight, in this week's film quiz the questions are about taste.
Name the film from the quote.
Update- answers

1. No, I wouldn't allow it. The taste would be terrible. Can you imagine Augustus-flavoured chocolate-coated Gloop? Ew. No one would buy it. cristin and aunty got - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2. They cursed us. Murderer they called us. They cursed us, and drove us away. And we wept, Precious, we wept to be so alone. And we only wish to catch fish so juicy sweet. And we forgot the taste of bread... the sound of trees... the softness of the wind. We even forgot our own name. cristin and aunty got - Lord of the Rings but aunty was more right with Return of the King

3. That's exactly my point. Exactly. Because you have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything.
steve got - The Matrix
4. Would you like something to eat? Something to nibble? Apricots, soaked in honey? Quite why, no one knows, because it stops them tasting like apricots and makes them taste like honey... and if you wanted honey, you could just... buy honey. Instead of apricots. But nevertheless they're yours if you want them.
steve got- Notting Hill
5. I don't need you to tell me how fucking good my coffee is, okay? I'm the one who buys it. I know how good it is. When Bonnie goes shopping she buys SHIT. I buy the gourmet expensive stuff because when I drink it I want to taste it. But you know what's on my mind right now? It AIN'T the coffee in my kitchen, it's the dead nigger in my garage.
cristin and aunty got- Pulp Fiction
6. How it's a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I'd opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks, like your '61. And then it begins its steady, inevitable decline.
steve got - Sideways
7. You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition's given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you? And that accent you've tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you... all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars... while you could only dream of getting out... getting anywhere... getting all the way to the FBI.
cristin and aunty got - Silence of the Lambs

Wants and needs

When you move from where you happen to have been born and go to another country you expect things to be different. In fact that may well be the reason for moving, for the differences.
I expected to miss the normal things, like friends and family, but it was the odd little things that I didn't anticipate missing that were the shocks.
When I moved from Dublin to London I discovered they didn't have red lemonade. The savages.
This shock was on top of my discovery that they didn't have proper crisps. These two jolts were unsettling.
In Ireland, if you are waiting for the bus to work (and to be honest, you are always waiting) it's considered normal form to talk to the person stood beside you if you happen to make eye contact.
Usually just small talk about the weather or complaints about the lack of buses.
This behaviour in England got me a few funny looks and was soon stopped.
And then there is the stuff you pay no attention to when it's there every day and only notice by it's absence. Being a lapsed Catholic (honestly, never much of one at all, shhh) I never paid much notice to the nightly event on RTE , the national television channel, at 6 o clock. But the angelus , as far as I was concerned was eternal. It was accepted and expected, like sand on a beach or sunburn on everyone the day after the first sunny day, it's just there.
Except it's not.
In fact, in England they had never even heard of it. And I had to try to explain the concept.
It went something like this:
me- Well, it's on at 6pm and is a series of religious pictures and a ringing bell.
them- why?
me- the ringing bell is to accompany the reciting of prayers.
them- no, why?
I had no answer.