Not too long ago, a German fellow told me of this song called Moskau. Apparently everyone in Germany knows it and when it comes on, they break into song and dance.
I decided, "I must find this wonderful song and see it for myself".

It is indeed very cheesy, but daaamn catchy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3lPGcvtpE

and of course I have to show you the "phonetic english translation" of this song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jH8gtrD4_C4

These are the actual lyrics: http://texasdex.com:1234/adexter/moskau.html (english + german there)

Enjoy :P
Much to my dismay, I learned that Nodatta got shut down this week. it was a premium website for discovering new kinds of music from all over the place. It shall be missed :(

I was doing some German homework today. It asked us to write a letter to a friend describing a Ski Holiday and how we were very unlucky and had an accident. Since it's not an in class assignment, I can check to see if my text makes some form of sense on a translator.
My translator of choice is at translation2.paralink.com

So anyways...here's how some of my story goes (in english):

Dear Kiwi,

I've already been in Linggries for two weeks. It's fantastic here, but yesterday was very unlucky. I woke up at 7 am and then had breakfast. In the afternoon I went skiing. It was very fun, but I wasn't careful. Suddenly, I fell near a tree.....(blah blah blah, the rest goes on)

Now, I wrote that in german and then translated back, and "Suddenly, I fell near a tree" turned into "Suddenly, I liked with a tree".
Oh! Wonderful, beautiful tree, how I love you so.
I really enjoy back translations :)

Anyways, it's been a while since I spoke about languages on this blog. So here's a bit of an update, as shown on Goomba's Map of Linguistic Domination (goomba was a nickname I had on the net before).
So, Goomba's show what countries I've conquered, at least beginners level.
Toad's are the ones that I want to conquer but haven't been able to yet. Also, klicken Sie das Bild!

Toad and Goomba are both in China. Toad can't speak Mandarin, he can only count. Goomba however, knows a bit of Cantonese. Not a heaping lot, but still some.
Also, Toad appears to be floating around in ocean's (like near Iceland). But, it's just that he was too big to go in the country he wanted to learn the language of (he would've covered the title). So he's just hanging out on the beach.

Toad also forgot to leave his mushroom hat's in the Middle East. Fear not! He does want to learn Arabic! He cannot keep smuggling Falafel's without learning some.

I should actually visit some of these places one day though :( otherwise I won't be able to practice anything.

Well, now back to homework. I shall now go on a quest for Exotic Blackholes in my Astronomy class.

P.S. Blackholes used to freak the hell out of me as a little'un. I'd dream that they'd appear in my room and suck everything in. That's what you get for watching space shows when you're 5!
Happy New Year and all that :)

I made a purchase at the beginning of the December and it was a most excellent purchase at that. It was the deluxe edition of the Heima DVD by Sigur Ros. This edition consists of 2 Discs and a photo album that has many photos of Iceland. It's really cool packaging.

The idea being Heima is the following (As taken from the site)

"Last year, in the endless magic hour of the Icelandic summer, Sigur Rós played a series of concerts around their homeland. Combining both the biggest and smallest shows of their career, the entire tour was filmed, and now provides a unique insight into one of the world’s shyest and least understood bands captured live in their natural habitat.

The culmination of more than a year spent promoting their hugely successful ‘Takk…’ album around the world, the Icelandic tour was free to all-comers and went largely unannounced. Playing in deserted fish factories, outsider art follies, far-flung community halls, sylvan fields, darkened caves and the hoofprint of Odin’s horse, Sleipnir*, the band reached an entirely new spectrum of the Icelandic population; young and old, ardent and merely quizzical, entirely by word-of-mouth."

The first disc basically shows their tour around Iceland. The quality of the images are amaaazing...Iceland looks so pretty and magical. The music is also awesome (I really like Sigur Ros if you haven't guessed by now :P).


So I'd say that's one of my best purchases of 2007.
Here are some clips from the movie:
The Trailer (with the song I Gaer playing in the background. Purely epic song!)

Heima (on disc 2)

Part of Von

That's it :)

Also, I went to one concert this year - The Dresden Dolls. It was great! You can read a review on Paw's blog. I never been to a show where there have been 2 opening bands, 1 acrobat and then the headliner. On top of that, the Dresden Dolls opened their part of the show with "In the Flesh" - Pink Floyd cover. What a great way to start a show. I love that song :D Youtube has a clip of them doing it on new years eve.

Until Next Time!