rich and creamy

The Rodcast Chronicles - Grizzly Man

Rodcast 3

This week the boys discuss Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man and the beautiful and strange shooting star that was Timothy Treadwell. Tangential postulates include coffee in Copenhagen, the only City journalism graduate brazen enough to take on grizzlies, and what Treadwell's legacy would have been like if, instead of bears, he had chose to live among geese.

And now the bride and groom will cut the giant fish

 

Will I was thinking maybe you and Jo could could have a giant corn on the cob instead of a wedding cake?

In failure to learn another language, blame history, unless you`re Belgian

I think I discovered the reason why it's harder for me to lean a new language (Japanese) than a camel to pass through the eye of a donkey. History and shock. Hear me out.

Imagine if you wil a nameless counrty. Okay, it's France. Say France had a shitty near neighbour who is always being an International Shithead. Let's imagine that country is Royomooni (that would be Britain if I could spell in French). Anyway as an International Shithead Royomooni is always meddling in Le France, so much so that for a long time it rules the day. That day goes on for around eight hundred years, but all the time Le France is beligerent and ungrateful. Pooh. One of the grande problems between the two, aside from culture, is language. La France speaks "blah, blah, blah," which sounds rather lovely, but is totally incomprehensible to the Chaps across the water. Anyway things stew on, as they do, relations getting worse. And worse. A watershed moment comes when the arse falls out from under La France and it loses half its population. Of course Roymooni smirks and feigns assitance, but on the whole is dandy about this.  

Then the darndest thing happens, La France switches from speaking le French to speaking the langauge of their neighbourly oppressors. In a generation or so it's like le French never existed. Now all you hear in the shops and streets is "hello" and "really, oh, rather". That other langauge, why they don`t even remember what it was called. It`s gone.

Now the notion of France without French is like Paris without the dog poo, but this is more or less what happened in Ireland. I can't think of any other countries that went switching national langauge so quickly with such a devestating effect on their mother tongue.  Worst of all is when that new language is English you are almost certain never to learn another language again. Just ask yourself what American, Scot, Australian, Kiwi or English person do you know that speaks a second langauge. If they do then they're probably Belgian. Because I am not Belgian I failed my Kanji and grammar test.

Some Wire re-up

Will and I have pretty much stopped hyperlinking because we got a bit bored of that game and besides we're cooler than that.  Having just written that, I am goina' go right ahead and link to another blog, because it's Wire related and pretty nerdy/funny. Jenn sent me a link to a post about how to bring The Wire to your office. All suggestions by Oliver Willis.

You can start by simply referring to all your supervisors as the "bosses", sneer when you do this. You also need to excel in bad grammar while showing pride in your work: "I'se a real web developer." When you're not praising your job, run it down by saying things like: "I wish I worked for a real accounts department."

Keep a supply of sweets and such in your office and refer to it as the stash. When a boss approaches let others know by calling out "Five-O, Five-O" and tell everyone you got your shit-hot computer speakers from "The Greek". Finally drink on the job, sleep with everyone, drink helps here, take credit for other's work, if confronted about this, just say "indeed" and walk on. When in doubt kill someone, that seems to work. And as your default phrase always say "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet."

On a related and unrelated matter, I am sure to fail my Japanese grammar test. I was hoping to find a small enough Japanese person to put under my desk to feed me the answers, instead I have to rely on my dumb ass brain. And finally if you haven't seen David Simon's Generation Kill, get on the burner to The Greek and get it yesterday. Again the writing is the best about and you can (will) watch it in a day, unlike having to take a month off for The Wire.

Flat Stanley needs a Parisian whore

These days Paris is so cold it stings to the bone, snot freezes before it runs out the nose, and you'll nearly chip a tooth eating a frozen croissant.

But today I was obliged to run around town and take photos for my little nephew. He sent me a paper cutout of a boy called Flat Stanley and the class project is to see new towns and cultures - he naturally thought of me since Paris, France is quite a bit different from Missouri.

I thought I'd get some strange glances from tourists arriving at Trocadero this morning around 8:30am or so but I was hardly the only one their with a camera. The only reason I got odd looks was because I was wearing a large, handmade Moroccan winter hat pulled down over my nose and chin with a tiny slit for my eyes. Meanwhile I was walking around with a chopstick - attached to Stanley - hanging out my mouth. Now, I love photography but I don't know if I'd be willing to get out of bed in this weather if it were my vacation. 

Since my nephew Clark is young, I stuck to the typical monuments - Eiffel, Notre Dame, Pompidou, Louvre pyramid, Sacre Coeur, and even popped one of Stanley at a cafe. But - if Clark were older - I would have been tempted to do a photo essay à la what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas - vacation debauchery.

Start the day with Stanley clean and prim - hit a few monuments, grab a patisserie. Hit up a musical at a theatre, go for some wine, and begin the long unyielding spiral of indulgence. What Flat Stanley needs is some action - time away from his family, to go get a tattoo, hit up strip clubs near Beaubourg, throw up in a bin, skip out on paying a taxi, make-out with a gullible American girl, and take a shit in an alley while smoking a joint.

I just hope when Clark heads to university - for some insane reason - he asks me to do this project for him again. Stanley will have the clap by the time I am done with him.

When politicians stop wearing ties, shit happens

This here is an Irish TD, or member of parliament. Unlike Westminister we have the single most boring parliament in the planet, so much so that all that occupies the place is air. However, when Deupty Somefellow from the Green Party, a minority government party, showed up after watching a few episodes of season four of The Wire, parlaiment all of a sudden got fierce unparliamentary. Idiot and legbab.

The Rodcast Chronicles - Bloody knuckles

                             

Rodcast 2

This week the homeboys take 35 minutes to bloody their knuckles discussing Sylvester Stallone's final installment of the storied Italian Stallion - Rocky Balboa. Conversation spills over onto last year's surprise film The Wrestler, the greatest action movie stars of all time, philly cheesesteaks, Cormac's hands, and Sabine as the first lady of arch-nemesis Nikfarjam.

 Just click the grey bar to play.
 

Box This

Box Animation from Jordan Clarke on Vimeo.

Pretty damn good stuff from a box.

Journalism becomes Blogging

In between flunking my dictation tests in Japanese - today I scored point five - and recording the first Rodcast - see below -  I noticed a sandwich-filler news story on the BBC website which got me thinking about journalism in the digital era. The story was about a competition held in Australia to find a name for the coming decade. "The One-ders" was declared the winner although it's about as likely to catch on as  much as the "noughties" did. Anyway, the merits of the name are of less interest than how the short news piece was developed.

With the news elements dispensed - the why, what, where, etc. - all that was left was to do add a comment that was mildly provocative or juxtaposed to the story. The comment - it was disproving of the winning name - was lifted from the official website and it was attributed, but identities on the internet are about as sound as financial plans in Dubai.

The BBC is by no means unique in grabbing comments from forums, blogs, YouTube et al. Adding comments to stories is a by-product of blogging and testament to its influence on journalism. What it means is that some nameless journalist back in London can pad out a story with a comment and get the story on line in a matter of minutes, which is the bottom line in digital journalism. In my last job I did same; it came from the top down to do so.

If I understand it in the minds of editors the idea is to democratise journalism, if you will, to give everyone a chance to have their say about a story, in a story. But surely it runs against the principle of meticulously checking attribution? Added to this is the merit of these comments - what do they actually add to the story? Rarely anything. Above all though it shows journalists and editors willingness to participate in a form of journalism that is rooted in the internet, with journalists tied to their chairs tapping away at the Ctrl C and Ctrl V buttons on their keyboards to pad out stories.

The Rodcast Chronicles

Rodcast 1

What do you get when you mix together something rich and creamy with a low-fi podcast...the Rodcast. Our inaugural audio flays Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona and asks what became of the once great film-maker. Also, the guys weave in Conor, Chloe, Sabine, Cormac, and Carl into movies they'd like to see made.

Just click on the grey bar to play.