Saturday, December 29, 2007

Documentary on Farts

Since I haven't posted a video in a while, I figured I would. This was another one of those moments where I was scrambling to find a videotape to record on. Here is a documentary on Farting that was aired on CBC either in the late 80s or early 90s.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Bastardized English

So, Christmas is finally over and we're all enjoying the gifts we got. Many have recieved an MP3 player, including myself. Unfortunately, I think we're all in trouble as we advance technologically. Don't get me wrong, the MP3 player works wonderfully, but the manual that came with it is nothing more than a good example of how well Babelfish does translation. In fact, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that's what our friends over in Japan use to make our instruction manuals.

I've recently been saving examples of poorly written english. All those years we practiced writing coherent instruction manuals in high school have been put to waste.

Here's a scan of one page from my MP3 player manual.



(click here to download the entire manual)

Surprisingly, this is Version 2.0 of the manual. I wonder how much of a disgrace Version 1.0 was? Here's a few gems from the manual:

"Do not use this player when driving, riding, or operating any other vehicles as it may lead to traffic accidents, which is illegal in some regions."

"Press power/stop button to turn it on while the player is off."

"Expect in record mode, long press power button until the letters of "Bye Bye" appears and the screen will turn dark, the player will be powered off.

Fortunately, although this manual is written in bastardized english, it's not too hard to decipher what it's trying to tell you since it includes screenshots, and the selections on the player's display makes it pretty self-explanitory.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for one digital camera I purchased. This is a camera I keep in my truck in case I see something interesting to take pictures of. Here's the "Frequently Asked Questions" section:



Some of the questions include:

"How to use photo impression down all the photos to photo impression."

"restart the computer after finish the installation of the software. The page which enable you to set up the installation path will be displayed."

I may be wrong, but those don't look like questions. I had one hell of a time trying to get this camera to work since the LCD only displays numbers and icons and the manual was obviously no help to me.

Unfortunately, it's not only instruction manuals that fall victim to bastardized english. Here's the packaging for a baby's pacifier:



After it claims that the item "is not a pacifier or a toy", it warns you not to tie the pacifier around the baby's neck. Somebody will eventually get sued for writing incoherent instructions to accompany their product.

And finally, I bring you a fortune I got in a fortune cookie. I keep this in my wallet and read it when things are making too much sense.



Just for the hell of it, I approached the chinese guy at work to help translate the message this thing is trying to convey. The scary thing is he understood it perfectly and was puzzled by the fact that I couldn't understand it. Go figure.

If you'd like to read more examples of bastardized english, check out http://www.engrish.com

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Album Review: Khool Yule - Khool and Friends

Before I get to the album review, I just want to clear up the item that I was hoping to have in my hands that I had mentioned in my last blog entry. It was a roll of film I found in a thrift store that I had developed. Unfortunately, the negatives look black until they're held up to light. I'll try and pull some images from them, but I make no promises.

Now that that's out of the way, I present the album Khool Yule by Khool and Friends which I bought still sealed at a thrift store for 25 cents.



A better title for this album would be "Shit Yule" because it's determined to kill and destroy any Christmas spirit you may have. The songs suck, and there's really bad commentary inbetween tracks, which I will post for your listening pleasure. I'm apologizing to my poor Onkyo deck which had the unfortunate experience of processing the output of this lousy excuse for a holiday treat.

Here's the songs:

01) Have A Real Khool Yule
This sounds like a really bad Milli Vanilli rip-off. Perhaps these guys should've killed themselves instead of that one guy from Milli Vanilli. At least they (almost) got to keep their grammy.

02) Joy To the World
This song was highly unrecognizable when it first came on. It sounds like a bad Debbie Gibson nightmare. Definately worthy of getting out of your chair to hit fast forward.

03) Give Them The Gift
Hey, this kinda sounds like Motown Philly by Boyz II Men. But these guys aren't as cool as Boyz II Men (and that's pretty pathetic). It's more like Men II Pansies.

04) Wonderful
This is the only decent song on the album because it sounds like Tiffany. But Tiffany was cool, and she would probably kick this chick's ass.

05) It's Christmas Time
OH NO! Not Christmas Rappin! In case you haven't guessed yet, this is a Christian tape. What's worse than Christian music? Christian RAP music otherwise known as C.RAP. Have I told you that this album REALLY sucks? I'm not through the first side yet, and I wanna tape over it just because owning this music is wrong on too many levels.

06) What Child Is This?
Apparently it was a rejected child. This is yet another Christmas Classic that is almost completely unidentifiable because the arrangement is shit. Reminds me of that 80s band Debarge, but this piece of crap shouldn't even be compared to a band who at least had one good song.

07) O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Who the hell is Emmanuel? Yeah, that's a real good thing to stick on a Christmas album. "When I think of Christmas, I think of Emmanuel". I personally think of my
neighbour Stephanie myself. She left her curtains open one too many times while she was giving away some holiday cheer. Anyway, enough of that. This song sounds like a bad Mariah Carey impersonator with Kenny G thrown in for that nice saxophone solo. I can guarantee Emmanuel is spinning in his grave like a slot machine.

08) Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Even though I'm not religious, this is one of my favorite Christmas songs. To completely destroy the little respect I had for this album, not only is it another bad Milli Vanilli rip-off, but the singer is that fucking irritating bastard who has been providing commentary between the songs.

09) Silent Night! Holy Night! / The First Noel
Oh great. Not only does it sound like Backstreet Boys, it's got the musicians from New Kids on the Block. NEXT PLEASE.

10) Have A Real Khool Yule (Reprise)
Yeah, like I needed to hear this again.

Anyway, here's a recording of the commentary and short clips of the songs. Feel free to shut it off when you've had enough.

Click Here to Listen!

So in conclusion, I give this album 0.5 out of five stars. I got the 0.5 from that Tiffany-ish song and the cover is kinda neat. But this album became outdated in 1989 (pretty bad considering it was released in 1991).

If you would like to buy a copy of Shit Yule, click here or buy the copy that's going for $4.99 on Ebay right now.