Magic Jewball

I didn’t have time for iPod Song of the Week this week. Make up your own! Hum it in your head! Sing it out loud and make people slap you!*

*J-Ball Management not responsible for people getting slapped. Especially after the event detailed below.

This post was meant for our Friday light post but as you can see, I got too busy to even hit the “publish” button. Oops. But now you can enjoy these items from last week’s International papers as you sip your coffee this morning instead.

From the London Daily Telegraph:
Wham! fan fined for Christmas revel in May

A fan of the 1980s pop band Wham! tormented neighbours by playing their hit song Last Christmas all night. Brian Turner repeatedly played the song at full volume from 1am onwards one night in May this year. Now he has been silenced after becoming the first noise nuisance to be prosecuted by Newcastle city council’s night watch team. Magistrates fined Turner, of Sandyford, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, £200 and ordered him to pay £215 costs.

Gosforth magistrates were told that he was visiting friends in a nearby flat in the suburb of Walker on May 15 when he began playing the Christmas single, to the annoyance of the residents. He played the hit by George Michael, whose hits with Wham! included Bad Boys and Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, relentlessly from 1am to 4am. Finally a neighbour snapped and called in the council noise squad, who eventually gave residents some peace by seizing the stereo.

Becca’s commentary: wake me up before you go go, then I shoot you for driving me batty.

From Le Monde:
Les cambrioleurs et la tentation du pot de Nutella
(The Burglars and the Temptation of the Jar of Nutella)

Don’t make me translate the whole article, especially the parts I had trouble with. But basically, the cops are patrolling in the wee hours and they see a couple of suspicious looking teens so they stop them and search their bags (no warrant needed in France I guess).

…the police officers discover a portable computer, a digital camera, two mobile telephones, a pack of cigarettes and… a jar of Nutella. Objects which the two teenagers have just stolen from a house a few minutes earlier.

Yes, while they were swiping the valuables, the two burglars, 15 and 16 years old, couldn’t resist the lure of Nutella. Who hasn’t been in that situation?

Becca’s commentary: as they said in the Godfather, leave the computer, take the Nutella.

Actually, a thief in Beit Shemesh, Israel, where my cousins used to live had an M.O. of stealing your valuables plus any fruit you had laying around the kitchen. He especially liked bananas.

Speaking of laughter, feel free to check out my new page which details the songs I have purchased on iTunes. It’s over there in the box with Pages on the upper right (you could have guessed that, I know). I reserve the right to take down this feature should my purchases get even more embarrassing. It’s a widget. Yes, I broke down and added a widget.

Wham! - Last Christmas

I think Friday is now officially the day for pictures & video, i.e., I don’t have to write much. Not only do I never have anything to say but somehow there’s always something extraneous that I want to show you. This weekend I’m off to New Jersey to visit my cousins (if you’re thinking I have a lot of cousins, well, all I can say is, I don’t so much belong to a family as a clan… can I get a witness, Pious B?) and so instead of packing as I should be, I’m editing video. Naturellement. I use that term because, once again, we have (insert ponderous voice) Scenes from the French News.

I had to rewind this first bit twice. I think I wasn’t totally aware that a man could care this much about a sheep.

Bang! Actually, the bear that he’s so deeply stressed about was killed by a car, thus saving this man years of therapy.

And then we have this guy. Now, I’m sure I’m going to hell for making fun of this story but somehow, something about this clip just cracks my shit up. No, sorry, sorry, this man’s love for his cows is, um, special. Very special.

The background is that foot-and-mouth disease in the UK (it sounds better in French, fièvre aphteuse) has caused this man’s herd, which he was apparently very, uh, close to, to have to be destroyed. Including Ned, the lovely old bull.

But this all reminds me of a story of when my Mom came down with some sort of human variation of foot-and-mouth and my Dad said, “oh no, they’re going to have to kill the whole herd!”

Have a good weekend, everyone!

From the department of fun technical glitches via my Google reader:
(click to enlarge)

I wish I could type you the rest of that joke but I fear offending several nationalities. Ask Sarpon. But for the time being I’ll just use it in the Simpsons sense, even though you’ll probably make the same joke once you watch the video. Shame on you, you stereotyper! I bet you also think that Americans are fat and Jews are good with money.

Anyway, by popular demand (really, several people asked), here is the bit of video that goes with the last screenshot in the previous post. Segments like these are what make this show so much fun to watch although it’s probably not a good thing that I have no idea who sits on the US cabinet but yet I could pick Rachida Dati and Bernard Kouchner out of a line-up (I’m still waiting for them to explain how a French politician got a name like Jack Lang but whatever). Oh, and that last shot is the weekday anchor, David Pujadas. He’s not as much my cup of tea, but he still brings in the funny sometimes.

I don’t know why but I could watch this clip all day. I never see that carp coming. Calm down, Alain, you’re going to knock yourself out and you know, then the fish win.

As I told Kay in a comment on her blog, I watch the news from France2 each night because, as you will recall, I’m too lazy to do my French lessons. It’s both a blessing and a curse that it’s not actually translated word-for-word but rather summarized for you in a terse subtitle. Even I with my sad-ass French can hear things spoken that aren’t being written. But sometimes that helps me figure things out for myself and enables me to use my swear-word-rich vocabulary to hurl epithets at the translators. But I digress. Here was a fun piece the other day about a breed of carp which have overpopulated the Mississippi. It’s sad, really, because the fishermen don’t know what to do with all them carp. But have no fear! There is a market. Here’s our reporter with the story, as my favorite anchor, twinkly-eyed weekend guy Laurent Delahousse (above), would say. Except more French.

Golly, then who will buy all these fish?

Oh right, the Chinese. They’re weird. Anyone else?

Oh yes, the vast Jewish gefilte fish market! Why, we eat that at every meal! “Thank God the Jews have such an insatiable palate for gefilte fish,” said the fishermen. “We’re saved!” But we know that Americans don’t like carp. So I guess Jews aren’t American. Or maybe they mean French Jews. I’m sure they’re just jonesing for new sources of carp.

OK, I admit it, this is the real reason I watch this show. You just don’t get enthusiastic on-location segments like this in America outside of hurricane season.

Here’s a little something for Kay and everyone else frustrated with Versus pronunciation: Audio Sound File.

Kraftwerk - Tour De France