Feb. 25, 2005 A blind man has been arrested in Scotland after witnesses reported he sank his teeth into his guide dog’s head and then kicked the Labrador-retriever mix after it apparently wouldn’t help him across a busy street.
DENVER - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America’s underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” has committed suicide.
Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff’s officials said. He was 67.
In Thursday's "Around the Watercooler," the anchors of "Good Morning America" talked to 19-year-old Gary Brolsma of Saddle Brook, N.J., who has become a sensation on the Internet with an amateur video of himself singing and dancing to a Romanian pop song [Dragostea Din Tei by O-zone]. He calls it the "Numa Numa Dance." [This site has a version with English subtitles]Note: While I've been studying for the GMAT (t-minus 36 hours, thank God), the rest of the planet has been making their own parodies. See http://www2.aqweb.net/ikari/flash/maiyahi.swf and http://www.newgrounds.com/collections/numanuma.html
"Dragostea Din Tei" (meaning "Love Among the Linden Trees" in Romanian) is the most well-known single of the Moldovan-Romanian band O-Zone. It was released in Romania in late 2003 and in much of the rest of Europe in early 2004. Having topped the singles charts in many European countries, the song could undoubtedly be regarded as one of 2004's most important Summer hits. The song attained cult status among a variety of social groups across the continent, the russ of Norway being a prominent example.See a video of the boys of O-Zone lip-synching to their own song in an American Bandstand-esque "live" appearance. And a link to the original video.In Italy, the most popular version is from Haiducii (Paula Mitrache). Both O-Zone and Haiducii accuse each other of stealing the song.
Now considered both a dancing anthem and a gay anthem, it also achieved some club success in the US. A collaboration between Dan Balan of O-Zone, and New York DJ Lucas Prata created a version of the same tune in English. This version, renamed "Mai A Hee", is only superficially connected to the original lyrics, with no mention of trees.
The song has received some additional popularity on the Internet through several amateur Flash music videos. One stars a super deformed rendition of Sha Gojyo, a character from the anime and manga series Saiyuki, performing some limited dancing. There is also a video done entirely out of LEGO bricks.
The most recently popular flash video using the song depicts 19-year-old Gary Brolsma, overweight teenage boy from Saddle Brook, New Jersey, lip syncing the words. The video was seemingly taken from the view of a web camera. A version of this video has also appeared with extraneous pictures flashing up at times: a man towering over penguins, known as Penguin God to some, a man looking into the camera known as Yablo the Sexy and a Chinese man inside a doggy bag.
| Ma-ia-hii Ma-ia-huu Ma-ia-hoo Ma-ia-haha | [These are just sounds.] |
| Alo, Salut, sunt eu, un haiduc, Si te rog, iubirea mea, primeste fericirea. Alo, alo, sunt eu Picasso, Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic, Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic. | Hello [on a cellphone], greetings, it's me, an outlaw, I ask you, my love, to accept happiness. Hello, hello, it's me, Picasso, I sent you a beep [cellphone signal], and I'm brave [or strong], But you should know that I'm not asking for anything from you. |
| Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei, Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei. Chipul tau si dragostea din tei, Mi-amintesc de ochii tai. | You want to leave but you don't want don't want to take me, don't want don't want to take me, don't want don't want don't want to take me. Your face and the love from the linden trees, And I remember your eyes. |
| Te sun, sa-ti spun, ce simt acum, Alo, iubirea mea, sunt eu, fericirea. Alo, alo, sunt iarasi eu, Picasso, Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic, Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic. | I call you, to tell you what I feel right now, Hello, my love, it's me, your happiness. Hello, hello, it's me again, Picasso, I sent you a beep [cellphone signal] and I'm brave [or strong], But you should know that I'm not asking for anything from you. |
Sometime after 11 p.m. last Thursday night [Feb. 10,2005], as part of the Koala's weekly
TV show, SRTV ran a short clip of hardcore amateur pornography. The video
reportedly showed Steve York, Koala editor, engaged in sex with an unidentified
female.
In May of 2004, SRTV was temporarily shut down for showing similarly indecent material.
My favorite quote from the last time this happened: "Because Thornton patients and employees who found the material offensive have refused to describe it, according to Welch and station manager Jared Lindo, SRTV members have yet to figure out whether the broadcast was part of regular station programming or if a break-in occurred."
Via youcsd.com and the UCSD Guardian
RE: “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America”
February 7, 2005, pp. 34–45
Dear Editors,
Roberta Ahmanson, once linked to advocating the stoning of homosexuals, declares her Evangelical goal to be “improving the lives of human beings.” Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson credits “religious ideas” with achieving “social justice.”
This rhetoric sounds honorable coming from Time’s 25 influential Evangelicals, but it is cruelly meaningless when you consider the millions of families destroyed by divorce and adultery and spouse abuse—all of which are curiously ignored by Evangelicals who are too busy “improving” these families’ lives by attacking the make-believe threat of gay marriage. And where is the “social justice” in denying same-sex partners visitation rights in the hospital or using our relationships as kindling to fuel a bloody culture war?
If Evangelical leaders are as concerned about protecting marriage as your profiles repeatedly suggest, they would abandon their virulent anti-gay marriage crusade and instead focus their tireless energies on making adultery illegal. Adultery is, after all, explicitly banned in their beloved Ten Commandments—where homosexuality isn’t even mentioned. And it’s arguably the most destructive—and most preventable—threat to the institution of marriage. Until then, Evangelicals’ talk of improving lives and achieving social justice is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide their unconscionable campaign to vilify gay people and classify us as second-class citizens—either for the love of fund-raising money or, appallingly, just for sport.
Sincerely,
Jake
 Waimea Shorebreak, on a 25' plus day |  Reticulated Giraffes, just outside Nairobi |
"They're very odd people, you know. When they're young, they have their teeth straightened, their tonsils taken out, and gallons of vitamins pumped into them. Something happens to their insides. They become immunized, mechanized, air conditioned, and hydromatic. I'm not even sure whether he has a heart."
"Is he a creature from outer space?"
"No, he's an American."
 |  |  |  |  |
The debate in the summer of 1995 centred around the Blur v Oasis debate. The correct answer was Pulp. Unlike Blur or Oasis, Pulp underwent a long gestation period before their instant classic 'Different Class', and their sound on this album reflects the development of a band who had gone through their probationary period and hit exactly the right tone at the right time.
The mid 1990s were marked by the 'St Martin's college' culture -posh kids pretending to slum it. The signature tune on 'Different Class' skewers this custom in a build up of bitterness and class confrontation, deliberately attacking the bourgeoise 'poor' - 'You'll never fail like common people/never watch your life slide out of view'. Puncturing the middle class attitudes of the time is a theme that runs throughout the album - wittily and acidicly too. Take the following lyric from 'I spy' - 'My favourite parks are car parks, grass is something you smoke, birds are something you shag. Take your Year in Provence and shove it up your ass'. Cocker evidently does not suffer pretention gladly.
The Eiffel Tower's likeness had long since been part of the public domain, when in 2003, it was abruptly repossessed by the city of Paris. That's the year that the SNTE, the company charged with maintaining the tower, adorned it with a distinctive lighting display, copyrighted the design, and in one feel swoop, reclaimed the nighttime image and likeness of the most popular monument on earth. In short: they changed the actual likeness of the tower, and then copyrighted that.Via DDTB
As a result, it's no longer legal to publish current photographs of the Eiffel Tower at night without permission. Technically, this applies even to amateurs. When I spoke to the Director of Documentation for SNTE, Stéphane Dieu, via phone last week, he assured me that SNTE wasn't interested in prohibiting the publication of amateur photography on personal Web sites. "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways we don't approve," said Mr. Dieu.
So while publishing nighttime photos of the Eiffel Tower may now be illegal, it isn't all bad news for tourists; SNTE profits go back to the city of Paris, making it, hopefully, and even nicer place to visit.
