I’m a man of obsession. Obsession over stupid things, mostly, but obsession nonetheless. My latest obsession has been Top Gear. I don’t claim to have discovered this show, of course; Top Gear is a British car show that’s been around for decades. They had a reinvention of sorts at the turn of the century, though, and became quite a bit more eccentric. I had seen some clips of the show on YouTube, so I was aware of the crazy stuff that they did, but it wasn’t until I caught Series 10 on Netflix streaming that I realized just how often they did awesome, hilarious stuff.
As I watched that series (originally aired in 2007), I came across this segment, where the Top Gear crew pay an homage (of sorts) to the quality of British craftsmanship. It’s four YouTube videos (32 minutes total), and it’s just about the funniest thing I have watched in the past six months, perhaps even the past year. If you aren’t laughing hysterically at some point in time while watching this, I’m afraid that we can’t be friends.
Back in November, I used up some of my vacation days and visited Japan. Not just on a whim, mind you; when I travel, I travel to visit people. In this case, it’s my good friends Yusuke and Tomoko, old compatriots from High School (Yusuke) and undergrad (Tomoko). While I flew in from San Francisco, another friend from undergrad, Becky, flew in from Boston along with her boyfriend Steve. So in many ways, it was a little reunion with a lot of my favorite people. Continue Reading »
When delivering their distinct brand of satire, the folks at The Daily Show make heavy use of sarcasm, with devastating results. These two clips were from the January 5th show, and they are fantastic.
I don’t normally post stuff from the Colbert Report, because I don’t really have time (or make time) to watch both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, so I’ve picked TDS, and rely on other websites to recommend any extraordinary segments. Talking Points Memo posted this one a week and a half ago, and I finally got around to watching it. Overall, a solidly hyperbolical segment, with a great use of elemental symbol humor.
Merry Christmas everybody! I’m not Christian myself, but I do enjoy myself a day off. For all my loyal readers out there, I have a special treat for you, one that’s been on all your wishlists : a new post about a hiking trip I took in September! Yeah, towards the end of — wait, what? That wasn’t on your Christmas wishlist at all? Well, I don’t know, I have the whole list right here, and it clearly shows “A new hiking post from Ranjeet” for all of you. I don’t know what to say, take it up with Santa. At least it’s not a lump of coal.
Back towards the end of September, I visited The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, a redwood-centric state park a little bit southeast of Santa Cruz. It’s pretty much the southest I’ve traveled for hiking, although the trip took less than an hour, thanks to its proximity to major highways. Although the area stopped being a logging camp in the 1920’s, it only became a state park in the 60’s. Compared to a lot of the other state parks, that’s pretty young. This park is close enough to “civilization” that many people eschew the Park’s parking lot. They park at businesses that exist right outside the park and then bike or run inside, thus avoiding the daily park fee. I kinda think this is a rude move, because they are using the park while not supporting it. It’s also a tiring move, because even if you park right outside the park, it’s a long, windy, uphill climb to the park interior. Basically, if you park outside, it’s a 5k just to get to anything worth seeing.
Nisene Parks State Park was sorta disappointing. Not too much signage, so I often didn’t know where I was. This is especially true near the park entrance, where the trails meander and I found myself back-tracking quite a bit. There are some very long hikes available here, but I found myself wanting to hit trails that were really far apart, so I ended up driving between trailheads. The first trails I hit included really old growth trees, including some real monsters, while the later trails were ridgeline trails through previously logged areas.
Alongside the issues with trail signs, there was a real dearth of historical information as well. The pictures I show pretty much detail the entirety of the documentation on site, which was disappointing, because I like to think that I’m learning while I’m hiking. Also, one of the main reasons I picked this park was that the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake is actually close to one of the trails! There is even a sign! Imagine my horror when I got there to find out that the Aptos Creek trail was closed! A great disappointment. Whatever. Overall, I grade this place a C. Again, no one punched me in the face.
Anyways, enjoy the pictures, and Merry Christmas to everyone! I successfully ordered a Bag of Random Crap from Woot today!
Flickr Set Here.
Slideshow Below.
Pictures & Descriptions after the jump.
Over the past weekend, I caught this video up on Fark’s video page. I had never seen it before, and I have to say, I find it positively entrancing. I watch once a day, often more. It’s Italian entertainer Adriano Celentano’sPrisencolinensinainciusol , this video is from roundabouts 1973, and there are few things I don’t love about it. I love the beat and the growl of the guitar. I love the choreography and the outfits. I love the disco-dancing blonde (Should I have been a child of the 70’s? Perhaps. Without the internet, I probably would get a lot more done) Heck, I even like the horns, and in general I hate horn flourishes in songs (you can thank the ska fad of the late 90’s and early 00’s for that). It’s like something Tarantino would put in his movies.
However, the most fascinating thing about this video, in my mind, is that fact that it’s gibberish. He isn’t speaking Italian (except at the very beginning of the video). He isn’t speaking any language. But it’s not unreasonable to think that it’s supposed to sound like English, with its bluesy edge and faux-American accent. And because of this, your mind starts to try and make sense of and form intelligible words (as has been done with great success in some Bollywood videos). The Japanese have a word for it : Soramimi : mishearing words in one language (or in this case, no language) for another language. The intralingual equivalent is mondegreening, like all those people who thought Jimi Hendrix was saying “Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy.” Since Adriano is singing in something close to an American accent, it also makes me wonder if non-English speakers hear their own language or just assume that it’s English.
I am an ignorant American; while I know a bit of German and a slight amount of French, I couldn’t really carry a conversation in anything other than English. But I’ve always thought that if you had me listen to people talking in Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, and Hungarian for one minute, I would identify 6 out of 6 at least 90% of the time, just based on what I know about the languages. What this video makes me wonder is that if I had each of those people pretend to be speaking in one of the other languages (Assuming it doesn’t just devolve into racist stereotyping), would I do just as well?
So, if you know me, you know that I don’t like Tom Brady. In fact, even if you don’t really know me, you might suspect that I hate Tom Brady, considering that I’ve made two posts consisting solely of the fact that I hate Tom Brady, on occasions where he has suffered devastating losses.
So why do I hate Tom Brady? Well, it doesn’t help that he played football at Michigan. My loathing of Michigan football is even deeper than that for Tom Brady. But it’s more than that. You see, I dislike all “good-looking” quarterbacks. Tom Brady is already a quarterback. He plays the most important position for the most popular sport in America. He makes millions of dollars because he’s actually really good at it. He has probably spent his entire life, since high school, as the center of adulation and attention. He should not get to knock up famous actresses and then marry supermodels. It’s just not right. If you’re going to be a successful quarterback, you should be homely. Otherwise, this is all just unbalanced. Booo, Tom Brady. Yeah, Kyle Orton!
Basically, though, my argument is seeded in jealousy and an inapplicable standard of justice. That’s just petty and irrational. Luckily, science has stepped in an gave me a plausible, legitimate reason for my prejudices! Continue Reading »
It’s still been pretty hot out here, so I’ve been continuing my redwood forest tour along the Santa Cruz mountains. This week, I traveled to Huddart County Park, just west of Woodside. The one interesting thing about Huddart is that it is directly adjoining the Phleger Estate, a piece of donated land that is actually part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, although it’s quite a bit of distance from the Golden Gate bridge. Actually, the Phleger Estate is best accessed through Huddart County Park.
One nice thing about Huddart is that it’s easily accessed; I took I-280 to Woodside Road, and after a few minutes made a right on King’s Mountain Road to get to the park. In all, it only took 30 minutes, although I had to proceed carefully through the town of Woodside because it seemed like 50% of the population was out jogging or biking. The bad thing about the park, something I really only realized during the hike, is that it’s on the wrong side of the mountains. Since the park is on the east side of the mountain, it isn’t really sheltered from the heat of the valley, unlike the other forests I’ve been hiking through on the west side of the mountains. So, the only real respite I had from the heat was when my path took me close to Skyline Boulevard, and cool breezes sometimes wafted over the ridge.
This park was full of strange noises. It’s possible that I was being tracked by some terrifying predator, but in general, there were lots of rustles, pops, and creaks throughout the woods. I did see one deer, but nothing else substantial. Of course, I tramp through the woods trying to make a decent amount of noise, so as to not surprise any ornery creatures.
While a nice hike in general, this park isn’t “special” enough to make up for the fact that it doesn’t provide a break from the heat. I give it a straight B.
Flickr set here.
Slideshow below.
Pictures/Descriptions after the break.
I was in Chicago at the end of July/beginning of August, but not three weeks later I found myself back again. Cameron and Gina were having a wedding reception! I know what you’re thinking. Wasn’t there some sort of reverend activity back in September? Well yes, there was. But you know, parents prefer it to see their kids getting married, rather than just hearing about it, so they decided to have a little ceremony in Chicago, and invite more than two people. I didn’t remember to take many pictures, because I was all caught up in the moment, but here they are, along with a picture courtesy of Dave Clutter.
On August 15th, I took a trip to Butano State Park, again on the western slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. This park is kinda tucked in behind Big Basin, and is much more annoying to get to. Much of the route is on winding country roads, so it took about 75-90 minutes to travel the 45 miles. The only other intrigue was the presence of a nearby wildfire, the so-called Lockheed fire. It was called the Lockheed fire because it was close to some Lockheed R & D facilities, which were in such “remote” locations so that if they exploded, they wouldn’t endanger a populated area. But that’s a different story. By my Google Maps estimates, that fire was over 10 miles and a few state parks away, so I figured I would be safe. However, the fire’s presence was definitely felt in the form of haze and the smell of smoke.
My hike was roughly 9 – 10 miles or so, and covered forests and canyons, flats and ridges. Bay Area Hiker doesn’t particularly like Butano, and I can’t disagree with her notion that Purisma Creek provides a better creekside hike. So I’ll give this hike a B+.
Flickr set here.
Slideshow below.
Pictures & descriptions after the jump.