I’ve been playing GeoGuessr since last night, and I’m just obsessed over my score. I’ve done terrible, but I’ve gotten my best score at just a little over 12000 points.
It uses Google Maps and drops you anywhere in the world, random locations — and sometimes in the middle of just vegetation — and then you have to pin the place on the map.
My nephew (my niece is past that, I think) is at that awkward Third Culture Kid stage in which he’s learning Spanish after speaking Swedish. When he just got here (about) 7 months ago, he didn’t speak much. My niece at that time was awkwardly explaining things as “this and that” while pointing. Being slightly younger, my nephew has already picked up the language a lot faster — he even uses words such as “grandazo,” (kinda like saying “super big”) “oye,” (hey) and “ya pues” (come on!) — as if he’s grown up here. He even calls on the ice-cream man [1] with a nonchalant “amigo, amigo” (friend, friend).
The downside to that is that he’s forgetting Swedish a lot faster too.
At school, he’s not only learning English, but also Italian- this is why, when we’re at the dinner or lunch table (sitting by my side), he keeps asking me if I know how to say “x word” in “x language” — as a language buff, I know how to get around this stuff. Especially at the age of 5. LOL So while I dazzled him with my “Vad heter du?” to which he responded “Mommy, mommy! Amy knows Swedish!” to then ask me if I knew how to say “apple” in Swedish. I did. But apparently, he didn’t. He asked his mom the same question to make sure I was telling the truth, and she told him “it starts with ‘Ä’…” (which sounds similar to “eh”), so all giddy he responded “ÄLEPHANT!”
When I was in Canada, I spent some of those Sunday nights watching Sunday Night Sex Show with Sue Johanson, and then my mind was blown. With her as-a-matter-of-fact tone, and some of the most bizarre requests [raw meat, anyone? Somebody said Athlete’s Foot?], Sue delivered sex knowledge and opinion like I have never had heard or seen before. It also happened that Sue wasn’t like how the media had made me imagine sexologists were like.
WARNING: This Hot Mix is both HILARIOUS and NSFW!
All the while, coming over down here, I saw the birth of Alessandra Rampolla and her show, which has in part revolutionized Latin America, I suppose. The difference with the both of them is, I suppose, culturally. While Sue’s show was set for call-answering ANY question, Rampolla’s show is set more like a talk show… which is more like a familiar format for the region, but doesn’t allow the same topic freedom that the other format offers.
I like that Rampolla’s way of talking is a lot like a kinder or primary school teacher explaining — still — the finer points of being bisexual to her audience with ease and humor. Rampolla’s style is more like Sexologist 101, while Sue is more Advanced Studies.
I didn’t find any cool YouTube mix of her, so this interview with her by Magaly Medina will have to do. Medina isn’t a sexologist or all that serious when she does her entertainment show, so some of her comments are a bit eye-roll worthy, but Rampolla really is that lovely.
This is the first time I ever found the Japanese name of this show. Kodomo Ningyougekijou (こどもにんぎょう劇場) or Children’s Puppet Theater, known in Peru (and maybe Latin America) as Me lo Contaron en Japon.
Though the DVDs are available on Amazon Japan — at a whopping price of nearly $50USD (over 4500 Yen) per volumen at 3 episodes a bundle [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], which results into over $600USD for 36 episodes. WHY, Japan? According to its Wikipedia page, the show possibly has over 50 episodes, running from 1990 to 2011.
About a week ago Nat Geo was showing a new episode of Tabu Latinamerica, which happened to focus on food. One of my favorite subjects. Thinking about food makes me hungry. But this is Tabu, so obviously we weren’t going to be talking about regular food. While the episode focused on Mexico and Venezuela, with their talks on eating rata campestre (countryside rat??? not from the sewers of course) soup, and… some kind of tarantula/spider?
Anyway, part of the episode also focused in Peru, where they showed a town called La Quebrada, in Cañete, they prepare cat. I haven’t eaten cat — at least, not knowingly… though once while we were eating rabbit chicharron, we suspected we had been given cat because the “rabbit” was bigger and had more fat in it — but I’ve eaten a lot of other things. Of course, guinea pig is kind of a regular “bizarre” food, and I guess rabbit is bizarre to some people. Suri (the worm) is also tasty when fried (it’s almost like crispy pork skin), as well as an assortment of fishes~ Including the palometa (which I’ve heard it’s a piranha’s cousin LOL) and paiche. Shark’s fin soup and swallow’s nest soup apply.
It’s kind of always been common knowledge that people ate cats in Peru- my family (and I’m sure many other people) often joked about it, it’s like joking about everything being chicken, or eating the insides of animals — horror movies and 4D jokes are perfect. Let me tell you, thank you Afro-Peruvians for developing Anticuchos. As a Peruvian who has finally learned to eat without asking (much), and not judge cultures by my own point of view, it saddens me to see people’s comments. Especially considering that we’re all Latin Americans.
Does it feel good to call other people ignorant, or small-minded? Is it wrong to eat something just because you think it’s your pet? Is it not wrong that we eat cow so easily when Indians see them as gods? We’re eating their gods, sending them to slaughter houses, and people judge these people because they eat their pets in a non-industrialized way. This is kind of the same issue I had with The Cove [1].
The Tokyo Shimbun (東京新聞) has developed an application for children to help them read their newspaper — difficult kanjis and all — by translating kanji into easy to read hiragana and other augmented reality features enhanced with animation and stuff.
I don’t think the Tokyo Shimbun realized that they’ve developed a tool for foreigners to read their newspaper. xD
Mandarin Ode to Vancouver Friends
So I had to write a small composition about my favorite city, so I picked Vancouver because it’s the only other city I can freely talk about. I wrote 130 characters — give or take — and made me realize just how much you can say on Weibo in 140 characters. Once I have a better handling of words, I might really do 140 Chinese characters music and movie reviews on there~
我的最喜欢城市是温哥华。 我曾经在那里学过图像设计和动画设计。
我一定对温哥华很熟悉比利马。 我很喜欢经常跟朋友们到处跑和照照片。
我常常想温哥华，对我的温哥华朋友有很深的感情，所以就像再来看看他们。我觉得他们跟以前不一样，我们越来越大，一些朋友有孩子也是越来越忙，但是他们跟以前一样热情。
Mind you, this hasn’t been grammatically checked. xD
Remember the days back back in the day when MTV was about music videos, and they had a show called Making Of the video before premiering a music video? Remember when they used to announce music videos and it was important? I miss those days…
And even though these music video directors talk about the big budgets given to only top artists, it feels like it’s been ages since I’ve liked a western mainstream music video. The Rihannas and Britney Spears don’t impress me — though, I gotta admit, I didn’t mind that Katy Perry music video for Wide Awake.
I don’t mind Lady Gaga, but her last couple of MVs have been lost to me.
There are some other music videos that are not so mainstream that have indeed peaked my interest… but I’m taking my eye candy — all of it — from crack Kpop music videos. Because… you know When Kpop Went Beyond American Pop.
The 2NE1s, Big Bangs, and other idol groups with their glossy and marvelous candy music videos infect my eyes and earworm into my brain. It’s hard for Korea to actually put some emphasis into their creatives and they should, so we must work with them on that. Otherwise… how will people know about directors Hwang Soo Ah and Cha Eun Taek?
Your music videos matter, Korea. Pull yourself together!
Googling about (as always), I ran into this Best of Beakman’s World collection [1], split into 6-part 10-min clips~ lo and behold! Complete episodes of Beakman’s World Español Latino dubs [1]!!! Because El Mundo de Beakman just melted my brain with the idea that the dubbing voice of Will Smith (Juan Alfonso Carralero, who just happened to be on TV last week as the voice of Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence xD) was ALSO the voice of Beakman.
Plus, there’s also Laura Torres. O_O
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgpDli4CaYk
I miss children programming like Beakman’s World — I know there are a few “science educational” children programs out there, but all of them lack the sense of fun and wonder that Beakman had. :(
This is another reason why the 90s rocked so much.
Also… RIP, my dear Ratson.
I haven’t really been properly following Okaasan to Issho — this means I haven’t been practicing my Japanese much — so I was really REALLY surprised: first, when they changed the weather mascots so soon. I suspect it didn’t suit well with the whole Tohoku Earthquake. They seemed to have lasted just a couple of years compared to some of the others…
Anyway, the second thing that surprised me was… Itou Mayu is no longer there! Apparently she did her last show by the end of March. Sadly, I haven’t found any clip of that online.
