unbibium

Basic Instructions gave instructions on how to listen to a boring story. And it managed to use the perfect example, since nothing is more boring than bored people.

I, and many people I'm close to, are often self-conscious of being boring. And I think a common assumption is that the topic plays a big part: how many people have heard their co-workers talking about their route to work and wanted to chloroform them? And yet, there are people out there who can make you interested in any topic. For example, I hate celebrity gossip, but somehow I enjoy Kathy Griffin's comedy specials. I never watch sports, but somehow when Adam Carolla talks about any sport, it makes sense. Also, watch any TEDtalk.

Then I read something that tied it all together. "A boring person is one who takes away your solitude, without giving companionship in return." I'm not sure of the source, or even the exact wording; it's not on Wikiquotes. Somehow the name Ambrose Bierce comes to mind. But the key words stuck, and since then, the world makes a little more sense.

It's not quite obvious yet how I can improve my conversational skills, but maybe that will happen unconsciously.

I remember being very happy for that brief period of Thanksgiving where I was meeting the rest of the in-laws for the first time since the wedding.

People had warned me about Crystal's mother because she apparently takes the occule very seriously, and I take science very seriously. I said, as long as she doesn't mention Sylvia Browne by name, I'll be fine. But in reality, we ended up just talking about the usual random things. Maybe she was coached too, because she said she heard I spoke Japanese, and I got to tell my story of how I became a language fan. We got along well the rest of the day. That chemistry is going to come in handy when the inevitable paranormal discussion comes up.

Crystal's brother is a vegetarian, and so I figured I might share with him what I'd heard about crows from the guy who made that crow vending machine. At the upstairs TV, we marveled at the dog show that was on, and wondered what kind of people were involved, and it turned out he never saw Best in Show.

Crystal's father is a Green Bay Packers fan, just like my father. I had learned only last week that the Packers are a community-owned football team, and it turns out he's one of the owners.

I could have avoided monopolizing the conversations, because it occurs to me I didn't learn that much else. But we all got along OK the rest of the time.

I'll be going to Dean's tonight.  Anyone who knows what I'm talking about is welcome to meet up with me there.  I'll probably show up around 6:30pm.

So last night I was at daemonx's house and we were all in his room watching internet videos, and we came across some misheard lyric videos.

This was the first time I think I've heard "Dragostea Din Tei" in its entirely, aka the Numa Numa song.

So today I hit Wikipedia and Yotube, found the original Numa Numa Dance video, whatever. It's a catchy song, but it takes more than a goofy lip sync to get my respect.

Then: the Japanese Numa Numa video. Where have you been all my life?

Things I love about this video:

• Has both misheard lyrics, and real Romanian lyrics in the captions.
• A handful of the misheard lyrics are in English, just to throw a bone to the West.
• The underlying plot of the animation seemed to vaguely coincide with the lyrics, though I'm more likely to be misunderstanding the animation than the lyrics, having read this translation.
• Pretty slick animation, compared against the photograph-and-captions slideshows I saw on the English ones last night.
• 2ch cats! I recognize then, though the only other places I've seen them were on that NSFW Chinko Anesan animation, and at an electronics store in Akihabara.

...and many more. Hey, are there any other Flash animations with those 2ch cats?