Magic Jewball

Sorry, but I need you to say it in that announcer-y voice. Anyway, it’s Friday, it’s November-almost-December, it’s gray, and all my sports are out of season. So it’s time for another edition of this, this time with no video, just this handy still from a story on new Parisian spas (I don’t know about the pink tint, I think it’s the lighting in the spa). I tried to caption it, I really did, but it only makes my head explode. It’s not just the statement but the glow in the spa-lady’s eyes. So, I will just share it with you as is. Have a good weekend, everyone!

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.

[flv width=”320″ height=”240″]http://www.magicjewball.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/eleveur.flv[/flv]

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.

[flv width=”320″ height=”240″]http://www.magicjewball.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/fermier.flv[/flv]

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!

Dear NY1,

Hey! How are you? Remember me? I’m the one who watches you faithfully because you focus on the minutiae of NY life. You talk about Christine Quinn when the other channels are having cooking segments. So naturally I turned to you this morning after being woken up at 6:45 am by a crack of thunder so loud I thought a tree had fallen from the roof through several floors and apartments above mine. I mean, well, first I went back to sleep because I don’t get up before eight, but you know, later. Due to the fact that there was three inches of rain, I was pretty sure our lame-ass transit system would have some issues, and by issues I figured nothing running. I sort of assumed that this would be the most important story in New York this morning and you’d have a list of what was running and where.

Gosh, how stupid of me! Footage of downed trees in Bay Ridge matter to as wide a swath of New Yorkers as subway issues, right? I realize that a tornado hitting Brooklyn is big news, but couldn’t that have been the second story? Couldn’t the first one be “your lifeline – not running?” Sure, we’re all satisfied with a message like “Paul Fleuranges says to stay home for a while.” That’s enough detail for me! And later, hearing Pat Kiernan say, “I keep refreshing the MTA website but it says it’s down,” well, of course I understand. Isn’t that how reporters get their news? I mean, when I turned to Channel 5 and they had an MTA spokesman on the phone talking about which lines had service changes, well, come on, they could have been refreshing the MTA website! What were they thinking?

So when I set out for the IRT and found the #1 running sporadically (when I asked the MTA lady at the station if it was running, she said, “yes, but they’re hot and crowded,” I thought, “so how is today different?”) of course I knew that because you had told me to stay home and that trees were down in Bay Ridge.

Oh, and the conductor who said there was a train directly behind the one I couldn’t get on while sweat poured down my entire body, whereas in fact another one didn’t show for 30 minutes? I know that one wasn’t your fault but I choose to blame you anyway.

You fail as bad as the MTA, NY1. The difference is, I never had any faith in them in the first place.

Sincerely,
New fan of Channel 5

This is what my commute looked like once I got on the train. Apparently, other people’s too. This is from the NY Times, Storms Snarl New York Commute.

Normally, when I don’t write for a bit it’s because I am brain-dead and there’s nothing to write about. Occasionally, though, I am actually too busy to fit blogging into my hectic schedule. This is just one of those weeks. You have the confluence of

a. busy record release schedule
b. week before Passover whirlwind
c. shockingly crazy social life

It’s led to the sort of clusterfuck which means more living, less blogging. People think that bloggers have no lives and thus can sit and write essays all the livelong day. But in reality, it’s a delicate balance of life to no life and once it gets upset, well, the blog’s going to suffer.

Anyhoo, I don’t have any sort of special topic so instead I’m going to comment on several items from the local news here in our fair city. This is good if you are like me and have a really short attention span. Look, something shiny!

1. Building collapse
This is something I never used to hear about, living in the suburbs as a child. Maybe that’s because suburbs were all built after 1950 and my current building, for example, dates from 1899. But still, should buildings just spontaneously collapse like this? Should I wonder if there’s going to be a pile of rubble when I go home? In my old building I used to hide my dope in case something happened while I was at work and someone had to go into my apartment. I’ve since solved that problem by buying an apartment and thus having no money for dope.

2. Wal-Mart to Manhattan: Drop dead
Likewise!

No seriously, I love new stores, everyone knows that, but couldn’t we get a Target? Oh, who am I kidding, there will be 49 new Commerce Bank branches before that happens.

3. Matthew Fox from Lost to speak at Columbia University
And I’m sure he’ll have oh-so-many words of wisdom to impart.

Can anyone get me tickets?

4. Is the restaurant Le Marais really Kosher?
And if it’s not, why is it so freaking expensive? Not to mention, forget all that, I was always told it was named after a Jewish neighborhood in Paris. Then I went there and found it was a gay neighborhood (not that the two are mutually exclusive or anything). What’s up with that?

5. Opening Day just five days away!
Oh, even I can’t snark on that.

6. Local eatery found to be rat-free.
Oh bwahahahaha, I made that up.

Of course, in the most exciting news of the week, I finally got Police tickets. Now I just need to find a collapse-proof building in which to store them until August.

The Police – Too Much Information