mouser.log

Today is a public holiday in Kazakhstan, celebrating the signing of their constitution in 1991. Actually the holiday is August 30, but since that fell on a weekend, today is a day off. There was a small fireworks display out over the Caspian on the 30th, maybe there will be more tonight.

I feel sort of bad for my new interpreter. The old one had to leave on Saturday for another assignment, so they brought out a new one Sunday afternoon. Now she has to sit here for a day with nothing to do, and on what should be a day off.

Posted by mouser at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The future high-tech me, communicating from the super high-tech future, has sent the following video clip of the upcoming vice-presidential debate. (Note that due to the nature of this mental transmission, certain elements are distorted as if in a dream. Governor Palin appears as an Alaskan king crab, whereas Senator Biden appears as a high-speed underwater pipe saw.)

Oops...

I imagine that the king crab association was brought on by this creepy photo:

It's like the Wild Dead Kingdom up in there. Sort of reminiscent of the carnage that I think is in store for this woman when she goes up against a veteran statesman in a public debate. I'm popping some popcorn for that one (assuming I can get back to the states by then).

Posted by mouser at 3:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Awesome + weird Brazillian rappers = --Awesome

The first 2:45 of this is great:

Not sure I much care for the rapping part. In this way, it is much like the DVD menu music from Y tu Mama Tambien (Titan y la Mala Rodriguez (Afila el colmillo))—the clip used on the DVD is great, but the full song is somehow less awesome.

I found the song performed in the video above through an ad on the Discovery World channel. A little internet sluthery revealed the title of the song and name of the artist, then it was a quick trip to YouTube to find the video. The clip used in the Discovery ad comes from the first bit, when the ladies are singing and the body percussion is going full-bore. Great clip. Better than the song as a whole.

As a side note, watching Discovery World in Kazakhstan is funny because they get the unregionalized version. The ads are in Russian, the narrators on the shows are in English, and any interviews with non-English-speaking people are not translated. I watched a show about South Africa, and the story was half told by the narrator, and half told by interviews with people speaking a language I didn't recognize. Trying to piece together the missing bits based on visual cues made it a challenge.

Posted by mouser at 1:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The only man ever who stores more stuff around the house than Nina's Mom.

Posted by mouser at 6:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

and I still don't have a firm date for when I'm leaving. I figured since I haven't been really talky here, maybe I'd just let everyone know I wasn't on any recent flight out of Bishkek. :)

Posted by mouser at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been watching a lot of the Olympics on account of my being a lot closer to Beijing time than most of you, and that I'm cooped up in a hotel for a lot of my time. Phelps' swinning contests have all come at a very convenient time for me, just before I leave before work. So every day I leave the hotel feeling awesome for some reason, having witnessed a total mutant blowing away the competition (yesterday and the 11th excluded, which were really even better because they were so close). So here we are... they're lined up for Phelps' final race, and it's another medley, meaning he has to count on his teammates again.

Normally, I'd say this is a iffy situation, since none of the other American swimmers seem to be orders of magnitude better than everyone else the way Phelps is... but on the other hand Lezak did save Phelps' bacon back on the 11th...

Anyway, I'm excited. And here we go...

25m: pretty even across... not significantly ahead, or behind.
50m: we're in first but not by much.
100m: neck and neck with someone else.
150m: first, but it's basically a 4-way tie with Japan, Australia, and someone else.
200m: Phelps is in the water. already half a body length ahead. what a stud.
250m: Third!! He lost his half-body lead!
300m: Don't taunt happy-fun Phelps. Back in first. Bad jump in for (Lezak?) but kicked total ass after that.
350m: First by .7s woot. Swim your ass off please. Rest of team is spazzing hard.
400m: New world record. Gold medals all around. Surprisingly little celebration by the American guys. Subdued.

The rest of the swimmers seem unsurprised. Everyone congratulates Phelps and he takes it well. I'm glad it worked out for him; I like seeing people achieve the incredible.

PS: Torres is also a stud. I love that she was in her first Olympics the year before Phelps was born.

Posted by mouser at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Damn, the greatest possible ham callsign is already taken.

Posted by mouser at 2:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)