Some funny videos I came across on youtube today…hilarious stuff!
“Canon Em D” by Paulinho Winterle
“Ode to Joy”, as performed by Beaker
“Habañera” as performed by Muppets
Just a dose of randomness! It does a body good! Enjoy!
Hutu GPS July 3, 2008
Overheard in the back kitchen at a pizza joint:
“Dude, I’m pretty sure that throwing a cell phone into a 500-degree pizza oven voids the warranty!”
I’m pretty sure that guy’d be right. Someone should tell that to the customer who came in just the other day.
The man had purchased a GPS unit from our store a little while back. He didn’t have the receipt, but he’d purchased an extended store warranty that covered the product for a year. The deal was that we would replace the item if it were to break within that year, or, if we no longer carried the item, a similar item would be substituted.
The man complained of problems with unit; namely, it had “randomly” changed the interface language to some unknown language which he couldn’t read. He wanted a new unit so he could start fresh. The associate looked at it to see whether she could figure out how to change it back to English-quite a task, since she couldn’t read a word of the menus. She showed it to another associate, who also couldn’t read it. I checked to see whether I could recognise the language, and at first glance it looked like Portugese, having both cedillas on some c’s and ~ (these things whatever they’re called) above vowels. But it wasn’t Portugese, since it didn’t bear enough resemblance to Spanish. During this whole process, my coworker who had originally tried to fix the device was talking to the man, who insisted that he get a new GPS unit on the grounds that this one was “broken”. My coworker explained that his changing the language to one he didn’t speak was not covered by the warranty.
Eventually, a couple of associates and rather a bit of a headache later, the device was back in English from what it had been before (which one associate thought might have been slang French-huh?) and the customer left with it, not quite satisfied.
Lesson learned: never put your GPS device into Hutu…the warranty doesn’t cover that.
Intercultural? Me? June 29, 2008
I thought I was pretty much an American traditionalist. was pretty sure that my “culture” and that of America were pretty similar. Ok, my culture and that of America 50 or 60 years ago, maybe.
I thought that, until the other day at work.
I’ve chosen purity and sexual abstinence until marriage for my life, not only out of obedience to God, but largely out of honour for my future husband, whoever he may be. As a symbol of that, I wear a ribbon wrapped around my left wrist and tied into a bow, symbolising that I am, as I delicately state it “an unopened gift” until marriage. (I also have a purity ring, which I wear on my left ring finger.)
Sometimes folks ask about these symbols, and I tell them what I have chosen. I try not to preach or talk their ear off about it, instead I just give them a brief explanation of why it’s there. Usually, since the subject is rather delicate, I use the phrase “unopened gift” or occasionally “saving myself”.
The other day at work, I was behind the service desk with a couple of coworkers. One of them, call her Ana (false names are used to protect the innocent), asked me about this ribbon. Ana is bilingual, with English being her second language. She understood my words, but had some trouble with my vague implications as to purity. She grabbed another girl (call her Krista), and asked for further explanation. Krista asked what exactly she was explaining. I told her, and she began.
This was Krista’s explanation of my position on purity: “Well, it means that she believes the Lord, and she follows the Lord. In her religion, the rules are that men and women don’t do anything, like they don’t kiss or have any kind of intercourse until after they are married. Once she’s married, she and her husband can do whatever they want to, but not till then.” She looked at me, as if to check her facts. “You also don’t date, correct?”
“In her religion“? Hold it! I hadn’t even actually tied this position to my religious beliefs; most people just thought that I was honouring my future husband, which is true. But what got me was her academic tone. It was as though she were introducing another friend who was Jewish by saying, “This is so-and-so, and they are Jewish, so they worship on Saturday and abstain from pork”!
That was the first time I’ve ever felt like an intercultural curiousity before. Ah, well. Perhaps I am. I knew I was from another decade, but I hadn’t quite grasped the idea of being viewed as from another culture entirely.
If you need me, I’ll be visiting Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Although I doubt the Amish there will look too kindly on my Internet use, Christian rock music, or jeans. Ah, well. I’ll just be my own little culture here.
Good afternoon, sister. Have you heard about the Lord?
