Thursday, February 19, 2009

#973 Rhys Darby, Acadia Farm, The Odd Girl, Car Danchi


Show 973 Thursday 19 February
Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.


Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

The video I recommend today is a video of Rhys Darby doing stand up. If you’re a Flight of the Conchords fan you’ll have heard of Rhys Darby. He plays the character of Murray. And he’s also been doing stand up for many years.

This video is of him performing in London in the year 2000. So some of the jokes are about him being from New Zealand which is a country with a very small population.

He talks about Rainbow’s End which a theme park in New Zealand – I think it’s the only one.
He says: It’s great. It’s huge. Imagine this room … and then he just stops. And the joke is that normally when you start a sentence like that, you’re using the room you’re in as a comparison and so you’ll finish with something like: It’s about ten times as big as this room.

My favourite line in this performance is: Take your shoes off, it’s socks only.

* Watch here from 5:03

He’s talking about a bouncy castle. Do you know what a bouncy castle is?

In Wikipedia it says it’s also called a whole lot of other things, like:

Moonbounce
inflatable playground
Astrojump
Moonwalk
Bounce house
SpaceWalk
inflatable castle
jumping castles



The Acadia Report
Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada


In The Acadia Report today I wanted to tell you about a project that started at Acadia University in September last year.

It’s called the Acadia Farm and basically some students started a farm to grow vegetables to sell to the university cafeteria – so that students could eat organic vegetables and learn about organic farming.
I think it’s a really good idea. And if you’re interested and want to find out more, you can watch a video about it on the Acadia channel – and you can also check out their site.



STICK NEWS

Kia ora in Stick News today Facebook announced it would revert back to its old policy on user information after thousands of people complained.

Facebook has more than 175 million active users worldwide.
According to Wikipedia, it’s the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom.
Recently Facebook changed its Terms of Use policy
CNN reported that the company deleted a sentence from the old Terms of Use which said Facebook could not claim any rights to original content that a user uploaded once the user closed his or her account.
They replaced it with this sentence: "You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. ... (H)owever, you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."
Thousands of members were not happy about the new rules and cancelled their accounts or created online petitions.
Apparently more than 64,000 people joined a group called The People Against the new Terms of Service.
Facebook has now decided to revert back to the old Terms of Use.

And that was Stick News for Thursday the 19th of February.
Kia ora.



TDES Niseko Snow Report
at Niseko Yurt Village


thanks to: Annie

Where do you normally go snowboarding?
In Germany, in the Alps. Like where I’m from we’ve got Middle Mountains (?) It’s like 1000 meters high. But it’s not as great for snowboarding. So usually we drive to the Alps which is like six hours driving.

How does that compare to Niseko?
The Alps is like, a little bit like New Zealand. It’s more stony, it’s heaps higher. The resorts are bigger. But here it’s more powder and it’s really nice with the trees. I never had that before in my life so it’s really nice.

How are the conditions in Niseko?
From what I experienced when I came first, I was amazed. Cause I never had so much snow in my life before. Cause the season, last season, I did in New Zealand, it was pretty bad. And even in German, in the Alps, we don’t have that much powder. And with the trees it’s absolutely amazing, like I find it really, really good. But now it’s a bit icy and windy and rainy, it’s not so good. But I’m still, I’m still really happy to be here, to enjoy the snow.



Word of the Day

Today’s word is odd.

One of the funny lines Rhys says is: I take home the odd girl.

* Here from 5:25
(Joke starts from 5:16)

Odd is an adjective which means occasional for example: We go out for the odd meal together.
When most people hear this sentence, they would think it means: Occasionally I take home a girl.

But odd also means: strange.



conversations with sarah
#611 Where did you get it?

Step 1: Repeat Lee’s lines.
Step 2: Read Lee’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Lee Nice T-shirt.

Sarah Thanks.

Lee Where did you get it?

Sarah Ah, I won it actually.

Lee You won it?

Sarah Yeah.

Lee How?

Sarah In a photography competition.

Lee I didn’t know you were a photographer.

Sarah Oh, I’m not. Not at all. It wasn’t really a photography competition, actually - it was more like a, a draw. You just had to send in a photo of a car covered in snow.

Lee What does it say?

Sarah It says Car Danchi. It’s for a snowboarding DVD.



notes

* Is it correct to say revert back?
Read this.

links

today's news
today's STICK NEWS pictures

Thanks to Powderlife for the T-Shirt.

music

show start
artist: Boom Tschak
album: Indietronic CCBit.
track: More Chocolate, Please
from: Former Yugoslavia
MySpace

The Acadia Report start
artist: DJ iPep's
album: Home Mix 2007
track: Concerto
from: EVREUX, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

nsr start
artist: Zeropage
album: Ambient Pills Update
track: Is It Real?
from: Switzerland
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

WOD start
artist: DJ iPep's
album: Home Mix 2007
track: Game Toy
from: EVREUX, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: Wolfgang S.
album: Indietronic CCBit.
track: Dynamite
from: Belgrade, Serbia, Former Yugoslavia
artist site
MySpace

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: triptracks
track: triptrack2
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: Innvivo
album: This Noise
track: L'homme robot
from: France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo

Did you notice a mistake in this script? Please leave us a comment and tell us! We really appreciate people pointing out our mistakes.Thank you.

Have you translated this script - or part of it - into your language for English practice and published it on your blog? Please leave a comment and a link so other people can read your translation. Thank you.

#972 Innocent English, Celebrity Gossip, Wasted Politician, MSK Stadium


Show 972 Wednesday 18 February
Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.


Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

I was looking a site called Innocent English – which posts things like funny English signs, ads and videos. And I saw one sign with a funny mistake on it that I thought I’d tell you about.
It was a sign made by the mayor of a small town in Illinois in the United States.
The mayor sounds like he was annoyed that some immigrants or tourists don’t speak English very well, and so he made this sign demanding that people learn English.
The sign says: English is our language no excetions learn it. Which is pretty funny – that word is missing the p. It should say: exceptions.



click here

The site I recommend today is called People.com.

I think it’s a really good idea to study English by reading about things that you’re interested in. So if you’re interested in American celebrities – like musicians or movie stars – then I recommend this site.

It seems to have slightly more class than the other celebrity gossip magazines or websites. It’s less of the harassing celebrities for putting on a few kilos or losing a few kilos - and mostly stuff like photos of celebrities at events, talking about their outfits or announcing that someone has got engaged or married or whatever.

Here’s an example from their Star Tracks section. It’s a photo of Angelina Jolie leaving a hotel. And the caption says:

OUTWARD BOUND
Angelina Jolie has a rare solo moment without her brood as she steps out Monday in New York City, where the Oscar nominee reportedly checked out apartments.



STICK NEWS

Kia ora in Stick News today the Japanese finance minister has resigned after facing criticism for his odd behaviour at a press conference in Rome.

Nakagawa Shoichi is the Japanese finance minister. Recently he answered some questions at a press conference at a G7 meeting in Italy. The Guardian reported his performance was bumbling and at times incomprehensible. Nakagawa said he had only had a sip of wine at lunch and blamed his behaviour on cold medicine.

And that was Stick News for Wednesday the 18th of February.
Kia ora.



TDES Niseko Snow Report
at MSK JR Apartment


One of the great features of our apartment is the car park which doubles as a soccer field.
Some pretty exciting matches get played here at MSK stadium.



Word of the Day

Today’s word is brood.

n. a large family of young animals, especially birds, produced at one hatching or birth

In the quote I mentioned from People.com they used the word brood in a humerous way – because as you know if you keep up to date with American celebrity gossip, Angelina Jolie has six young children.



conversations with sarah
#610 What are you watching?

Step 1: Repeat Bob’s lines.
Step 2: Read Bob’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Bob What are you watching?

Sarah Ah, The Daily English Show.

Bob Can you watch anything on there?

Sarah At the moment you can only watch certain content that they provide through
UP Link.

Bob What’s that?

Sarah It’s kind of like iTunes.

Bob Did you figure out what the wiper function is?

Sarah Yeah, it’s, um, to keep your eye focused on the screen.

Bob Ah, so it’s not to clean the screen?

Sarah No.



links

today's news
today's STICK NEWS pictures

UP - Media Port - by Nikon

music

show start
artist: Boom Tschak
album: Indietronic CCBit.
track: More Chocolate, Please
from: Former Yugoslavia
MySpace

click here start
artist: #NarNaoud#
album: Green Vision
track: Oriental Standing
from: Gironde, France
artist at Jamendo
album at Jamendo
artist site

nsr start
artist: Zeropage
album: Ambient Pills Update
track: Is It Real?
from: Switzerland
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

nsr bgm
artist: i am this
album: BLAPP.
track: magnolia
from: Phoenix, United States
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo

WOD start
artist: DJ iPep's
album: Home Mix 2007
track: Game Toy
from: EVREUX, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: Wolfgang S.
album: Indietronic CCBit.
track: Dynamite
from: Belgrade, Serbia, Former Yugoslavia
artist site
MySpace

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: triptracks
track: triptrack2
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: Innvivo
album: This Noise
track: L'homme robot
from: France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo

Did you notice a mistake in this script? Please leave us a comment and tell us! We really appreciate people pointing out our mistakes.Thank you.

Have you translated this script - or part of it - into your language for English practice and published it on your blog? Please leave a comment and a link so other people can read your translation. Thank you.