MistaSparkle

Kinda off topic, but I'm curious what airlines people are using to fly home... I've flown United every time, and they have personal video screens with decent movies, but the food is barely edible, the seats are cramped as hell, and the flight attendants are blatantly contemptuous of the passengers. I'm flying continental this time... anyone have any experiences with them? I got a good deal, but their prices seem like they're normally higher... expensive = better service??

Location definitely matters, it's what keeps Kazaa alive and out of range from US prosecutors. Sharman Networks (owners of Kazaa) the corporation, is registered in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. Their servers are in Denmark, the software is written in Estonia, and kazaa.com is registered in Australia. It all adds up to one super-shady corporation, but they're still around... I don't know what implications there are exactly for hosting mp3's on servers outside US borders though...

but.... getting back to the topic... I've heard the low-voice japanese girls, and I still think it sounds good... on the other hand, japanese dudes rippin away at 100 mph doesn't sound very graceful.

my bad barok... I had a crazy weekend with a friend in town for the week... I saw your mail but totally flaked and forgot to write back... Next time you come down to Tokyo, holla at me beforehand and I'll make sure the party's planned and the girls are waiting!

I've hung out with british peeps who had a tough time understanding what the americans in the group were saying at times, and vice versa...

I think Japanese sounds good when spoken slowly, or when spoken by girls, but it starts to sound very chattery when you hear people belting away really fast. Italian sounds very slick.... it's cool, but I can't put a finger on it. French sounds great when a woman is speaking, but sometimes I hear men speaking french and it sounds very feminine... but it probably depends on the person. I wonder what english sounds like to a non-english speaker...

It's definitely been a pretty mild rainy season, but the sweltering heat is just around the corner...

Ever heard a Cajun accent...? It's pretty much incomprehensible. I had american friends that watched "lock stock and two smoking barrels" with subtitles because the accents were too thick.

Ender - You have a point about poor pronunciation of japanese words... Thet get their fair butchering in english: "kama-ka-zee" "toh-kee-yoh" "Soo-shee" "ka-rahtee" "karee-ohkee" "Na-reetah" "Sigh-oh-nara" "ah-ree-gahtoh" I try not to use japanese pronunciation when i'm speaking to friends who are not japanese-familiar. It just comes off sounding really "Mr.IKnowMoreAboutJapanThanYou."

Ha.. i've seen that too. A gokon where all participants are plucking away at their ketai. I suppose you can gauge how well a date is going by how many times your date uses his/her ketai...

Hey Admins... enable avatars. just for kicks...

Call me weird, but I love long flights. Even tho it can be uncomfortable at times, and exhausting, I still enjoy that in between lag time where you have nothing else to do other than watch a movie, read, or sleep. My flights to and from home are 12 hours each way that I get press pause on life and just zone out...

Thought this was pretty funny: Man sues walmart after knocking a stack of dog bowls on himself I love this line: Wal-Mart attorney Patrick Kasson...called Whittington "a vexatious litigator who has filed dozens of lawsuits against everybody ranging from the governor of Ohio to his own brother."

I'm definitely NOT a morning person, but theres something a bit magical about early morning... like you said Goemon, that early morning light, sunrise, and the serenity before the city wakes up and gets moving... love that.

Quote: Originally posted by danz: when I am traveling or doing other things that excite me, I love to be up in the morning...but if I gotta work, or if there is nothing going on, let me sleep! Bullshit! What about when you wake mistasparkle up at the buttcrack of dawn to go riding, and then go back to sleep when he gets ready to go? eh? eh???

I think the gist is something like "actually," but I think there are a couple of ways it's used and the meaning is a little different depending on the context. Any pros have a better explanation?

tsk tsk.... shameless Ocean... shameless.

Quote: Originally posted by db: bbuuut, we borrow words that are unique to the article/object of reference: Arc de Triumph, pizza, escargo, Lufthansa. Or other dicky phrases that are used only for no good reason at all within English, like the French for "On the contrary" and that silly "tit 'a tet" or what ever hell it is. There are tons of german and french words that are n't unique to an object of reference. I found this long list of languages and words that English borrows from and this list of French terms and expressions commonly used in English Pretty interesting stuff....

In all fairness, i'm sure german and french speakers find our pronunciation of borrowed words to be horrible.

Whenever I hear a katakana word, i'm always thinking in the back of my head... yea what they meant to say was "(proper pronunciation)". The pronunciation is a bit akward to my ears, but it's the katakana words that have different meanings, or specified uses like "me-nia"(mania) or charenji (challenge) that are really whacked out. a-san: Do you do sa-fingu? b-san: No I haven't but sa-fubo-do getto. Are you sa-fu me-nia? a-san: Yes, this summer lets do safingu charenji!

I thought I'd dig this thread up instead of starting a new one, but I had a pretty funny experience at a soubetsukai (coworker going away party) this past weekend... One of the airhead OL's at my company had previously moved to a new company, and one of my coworkers casually asked her "are there any gaijin at your new company?" Her answer was "No, but there's a disabled person." I was like "WTF! What's the connection there??" (No offense to any disabled people here on the forum)

I've heard other people say the same sort of thing. I think there are alot of factors that might prevent developing "deep" friendships with Japanese friends, but number one has to language. Obviously everything that makes a friend a close is the chemistry you share and the way you communicate. In my experience I've had better relationships with english speaking Japanese friends, and I attribute that to ease of communication. I think my Japanese is ok for everyday shootin the shiat, but articulating myself in meaningful discussion with my Japanese friends is still really difficult. I don't fors

I also had a friend running an ftp server with 100 gigs worth of mp3s, who got a cease and desist letter from the RIAA through his ISP. I wonder if you'd have problems hosting an mp3 server outside the US though...

tatu... soooooo lame. I saw them make an appearance on mtv, They come out and all they had to say was "we don't care what anyone says about us," then kept hugging eachother acting like affected rock stars. Yea those girls are cute, but their music sounds like a cat dying and the whole feaux lesbian schtick is so weak... bleghgh!

Harrison Ford will always be cool because he was Indiana Jones, and Han Solo, but i've seen him in interviews... he's a bizarre guy. He speaks really slow, and just kind of rambles on answering questions in a half comprehensible way. I can't believe that geezer is with Kalista Flockheart either. They made an appearance together and he looks like her father... that whole exchange with Josh Hartnett made me cringe too...