I survived Soria 2006-2007

I am moving once again (and unfortunately I’m afraid it won’t be the last time).

From September 17th I will be living closer to Asturias than Madrid.

It’s been two weeks since I was in Soria for the last time and I thought it would be nice to say goodbye to you all with this post… I’ll see you around!!

Best of the best for all of you!   ….. you know who….. MJ, S,— A, —M, F, E, L, M, G, E, JL, P, — N, S, MJ, F,— J, M, A, —M, L, MA … but especially to all those who didn’t expect to find something ‘like that’ in Soria…

Due to my being fully devoted to studying for my exams next June :-s  I might be a little absent from the blog (or else I will write about the boring stuff I’ll be reading every day for my exams) either way you may get bored and not come back again. So I leave here a few links that I enjoy reading when I have free time (I used to have some)…

“Did you not have time to watch the classics of all time?” This web is a riot, have a look at it and let me know if you liked it… (Thanks to Halón Disparado).

One of the best blogs (in Spanish…) and another one (also Spanish, sorry).

If you’d like to start a blog visit The Traffic Blog.

Some of my friends’ blogs, all of them in Spanish: Moker, Pearl Van and Morgan.

I hope to come back soon….Be good!!

Thanks for reading me…

(Sorry this is a fairly self-concerned post.)

I have been learning some things about blogs and WordPress. From Moker I learnt how to add a site-meter to my blog. The one he had did not work for WordPress so I had to find one that worked with my blog. Visiting other WordPress blogs, I found SiteMeter, very similar to the Blog Patrol (or at least, similar enough… it counted visits, haha).

Now that I have it installed I visit my SiteMeter every now and then and it is very interesting (and surprising!) to see that some people spend more than one hour visiting my blog… I don’t think there’s so much to see!!!

Well, there must be because it’s happened several times… I’m REALLY surprised and happy about that and now I only wish that one of those people who enjoy reading my blog leave a comment with their opinion (somebody apart from siblings and cousins -thanks Morgan, Moker and Intuition).

I repeat that eeeeeeeeeeeeeverybody is welcomed to leave their comment whichever it might be. And from yesterday on, you don’t have to wait for me to approve your comments.

People from Galicia, Extremadura, Andalucia, …I know there’s somebody out there reading me… don’t be shy… come out and comment……………. if you wish.

TTFN

He had a dream

I have recently watched for the first time the whole ‘I have a dream’ speech delivered on the steps of Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963. I had, of course, read a lot about it, heard some parts once and again,… but I had never watched it complete. I want to share it with you, in case you have never seen it either, or if you have, you may enjoy watching it again.

It is a bit long. But I think it is worth it.

The first minutes warmed up the atmosphere, on minute 9 the speech starts to be inquestionably moving and starts to go for the climax with ‘Let us not wallow in the valley of dispair. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream …’ going up and up to the end. This last part starts around minute 12.

Watch Video …

See full transcription of the speech …

PS. By the way, for all of you who have ever commented on my blog and have seen that I have a quite awkward process of approving all comments, I let you know that I have finally changed that. From now on your comments will be automatically approved. So feel free to (responsibly) comment on any post you read!!

How long is it gonna take us?!

…. …. …. ….  

I think the video is enough comment about the topic. It is a teenager’s speech on climate change which was delivered in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) also known as the Earth Summit. It took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from June 3rd to 14th, 1992. It’s been more than 15 years since that summit. 

Watch Video …

I thank Isabel Perez for her amazing compilation work …

‘I love it when a plan comes together!’

The famous catch phrase used by Col. John ‘Hannibal’ Smith in The A Team was wisely translated into Spanish by ‘¡Me encanta que los planes salgan bien!’… Everyone my age remembers that. The field of translation is very complex and decisions have to be made bearing in mind a lot of elements. Fairly often, when a TV series or film is translated / dubbed some ‘details’ need to be adapted to the new language and/or culture. A proper name may have inappropriate connotations in the target culture, for example. (There are some very good examples to illustrate my point but … I don’t recall any at the moment

)

In the case of The A Team, the translators into Spanish did some changes to adapt to the Spanish viewers:

Sgt. ‘B.A.’ Barracus (‘B.A.‘ standing for ‘Bad Attitude’, as explained in The Pilot) changed to M.A. Barracus (‘M.A.’ standing for ‘Very Aggressive’ in Spanish Muy Agresivo).

Capt. H.M. Murdock was not translated but the initials stand for ‘Howling Mad’ in English and sometimes the group refer to him as Loco Aullador in Spanish – a very awkward nickname…

Finally, Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck is called Fénix in the Spanish version.

It is funny how one thing leads you to another. This topic came to my mind yesterday as I was watching the first episode of The IT Crowd (I highly recommend watching it … lots of laugh and very geeky. Wonderful shot with Jen’s job interview at the beginning!!!). On the first episode Denholm claimed that the names of the characters in his admired A Team were Bodie, Doyle, Tiger and the Jewellery Man  — he was partly confusing the A Team with The Professionals and partly just making up the names …

Going back to The IT Crowd, everything I have seen so far is a blast – the characters, the set, the dialogues … I have only seen the first three chapters, though. I hope it doesn’t jump the shark. I hear that NBC is preparing an American version of the series taking Moss from the original cast overseas. I hope the series lasts for a loooooong time and that we can eventually enjoy it here in Spain with a good translation/dubbing.

Thanks to Morgan for coming over yesterday and sharing The IT Crowd with me. You’re my favourite brother!

Did you know that … the original nursery rhyme went like this?

Well,  It’s about time I started to post about one of my favourite subjects… Trivia about TV shows and films. And this first ‘Trivia’ post is about one of the many hilarious gags of that wonderful show Friends … Ah! So many good laughs!!

In ‘The One with the Thumb’ (Chapter 1.3 of Friends) Phoebe sings a nursery rhyme that is supposed to go as follows …

 There was a crooked man

Who had a crooked smile

Who lived in a shoe

For a while …

 As I am not a native speaker of English I do not know if that nursery rhyme is quite/a bit/very famous for native speakers. From the puzzled look on Ross’ face we see that Phoebe doesn’t remember the words of the song properly (or else, remembers her own version of the rhyme, learnt from her mother before she killed herself? from the famous ‘albino guy’ she lived with before he also killed himself?…?)

These are the TWO original songs that gave way to ‘The Crooked Man Who lived in a Shoe’:

There was a Crooked Man 

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.  

There was an old Woman who lived in a shoe 

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn’t know what to do!
So she gave them some broth without any bread,
And she whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed! 

Not exactly smooth the words of those old nursery rhymes … but that’s off the topic.

Blog to you soon. 

Please, submit any comments you may have on this post. Thanks!

BlogDay

Today is blogday. All around the blogosphere bloggers will be recommending one another to the blogging community.

According to www.blogday.org  these are the BlogDay posting instructions:

1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2007
3. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
4. Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and
5. Add the BlogDay tag using this link:
   http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2007 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org/

This post is my contribution.

- My points of view:  Great pictures and more. Sometimes images speak louder than words.

- El Espontáneo:  A whole lot of interesting posts, videos and more. (in Spanish)

- Halón Disparado: A blog about maaaaaaany things … a bit of a chaos sometimes but very instructive (in Spanish)

- Blog Traffic School: One of my favourite blogs because it helps me learn a lot…. (I still need some time to put all those things into practice… :S )

- Bloggy Morgan: A great blog with opinion and info about different computer related topics and more…

Happy BlogDay 2007 to everyone!!

Minesweeper, the movie

Hi again,

As you see, I have not kept my first-day-promise and I have NOT written on the blog every day as recommended by a fellow blogger (see previous posts). I assume that writing on a blog everyday is tiring and many times you do not have anything interesting to share with ‘the family’. I have thus decided to commit myself to writing  on the blog once a week minimum and everytime I have something important to share – provided I have the time to write about it   !

One of my main interests and hobbies/passtimes is to look  at other blogs to see the thousands of possibilities that blogging may offer and also as a source of ‘interesting stuff’ for my own blog. Today I have been learning to install my site meter – to keep track of the visits to my blog- and I have found a couple of very interesting pages.

1. I highly recommend watching the trailer of the upcoming “Minesweeper- the movie”. I couldn’t stop laughing……. I have created a permalink in my blogroll to Colege Humor, where you can watch the video. Please, let me know if you liked it.

I have to credit El Espontáneo for finding the video………

2. I hear there is going to be a Blog Day August, 31st. I will write a new post especifically about this a.s.a.p.

Another way to find WiFi hotspots

I have installed Netstumbler on my PC and………. nothing happened. As you may have noticed I’m definitely not an advanced user of technology. I do my best to keep up with the most basic programmes and I also try to  keep learning as much as I can. But I most probably do many things wrong.

So, probably Netstumbler is not working because I did something wrong or else I did not do something that I should have done. The fact is that I cannot say anything good about the app (though it is probably wonderfully developed).

However, I’ve found another programme for finding WiFi hotspots which does work. It’s an application that can be used with or without internet connection and it has information about all Hotspots in Spain (allegedly…). I hope you find it useful. Click here for more info, there is a link to download the programme.

This is presumably the last post about the topic but you are welcome to send any comments about any of the programmes mentioned.

Blog to you soon.

ROTFL

Hi again. I “skipped blog” yesterday and I apologize for having broken that first rule I wrote on my first post: writing on the blog every single day…. :´(

I have to say that it won’t be the last time I do it, since I’m going on holiday next Monday for a week and I’m almost sure that I won’t have the chance to write any new posts. I may have the time, however, to quickly log in to answer to any comments you may have. . but I can’t promise.

Going back to my “letting you down” for a day, I confess that I had planned to write about the results with the Netstumbler, but since I hadn’t “done my homework” (i.e. installing and trying out the programme, so that I could tell you about it) I put off my posting on and on…

So here I am, writing again but still with no news about the app because I (again!) haven’t tried it out.

This post is about something I found out yesterday and which called my attention as a teacher of English/ linguist/ translator. The name of the post doesn’t ring a bell? It must be quite obvious for English speaker users of blogs, chats, etc. but it may not be quite as clear for non-native speakers of English, especially if they haven’t used the so-called “new technologies” for communicating with others in English.

The abreviations and acronyms are pervasive in the ever increasing phenomena of text messaging (SMS), instant messaging (MSN Messenger…), chat rooms (IRC…), and some of them are coming into other more traditional types of communication: advertising, teen magazines,…

Apart from abreviations and acronyms, there is a newly created linguistic term to name ”words” like LOL (laughing out loud or lots of laughs) or IMHO (in my humble opinion). They are called initialisms and they are everywhere. Another example is the title of the post, and if you search for ‘LOL’ in Wikipedia, you’ll find out more. 

I hope you found this as interesting as I did.

Blog to you soon.