Chicken chicken chicken...

Chicken chicken chicken, chicken chicken chickens chicken. Chicken. Chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken!

Chicken chicken chicken chicken's chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken chickens chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken! Chicken chicken chicken! Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken. (Clicken chicken .PDF) Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken, chicken chicken chicken!

Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken, chicken chicken. Chicken chicken!

(Chicken Chicken, chicken ChickenChicken chicken chicken)

Nick's thoughts on Eurovsion...

More vicarious posting. Check out what Nick has written on his blog about Eurovision. This WILL be the last Eurovision-related post. Really it will. It's over. We have to stop dissecting it on a daily basis. At least until next year...
But it's hard when Sean plays the songs everyday. Usually starting with the most annoying ones...

Eurovision

Another year of Eurovision has come and gone, accompanied by the usual parties, trash, and crappy music. The winners were Serbia with a dykey woman in a suit singing while surrounded by femmes in suits standing very close and occasionally stroking her. It was interesting for a country still struggling for real GLBT rights!

Other noteworthy entries:

• The Bulgarians had a pint-sized amazonian woman with amazing vocals (without words, I think) and cool drumming - very powerful act.

• The Ukrainians came second with "Dancing" sung by a drag queen going for the traditionally built eastern european woman look, complete with house coat. Except it was all made of tinfoil. Including the futuristic hat with a star that he wore on his head. It was really quite extraordinary, but I can't find a picture to include, so I'll just have to post the Youtube clip. This will also allow you to hear the incredibly complex lyrics, which seem to be in terrible broken English, French, German. The recurring refrain is "seven seven, one two, seven seven, ai lyu lyu". In any language. Full lyrics here.

• The French entry included costumes by Gaultier, apparently, though I have to say they were bloody awful, and a lovely set of Frenglish/Franglais lyrics

I remember jolie demoiselle
The last Summer comme tu e'tais belle
I remember nous la Tour Eiffel
So beautiful with your sac Chanel

• The Irish had a pretty song - and very very Irish, but the woman who sang it looked utterly terrified on stage, so it wasn't too surprising that they came absolutely last, with 5 points (thanks Latvia).

• The Brits were second last, and managed to get a total of 19 points, with a song that was definitely in the novelty category. My British friend who lives in Finland has an interesting discussion of British and Finnish attitudes to the whole contest. And a fuller description of the British entry!

Enough trash talk. Back to something real. Like the translations I'm trying to get done this week. Sigh.

Bored Now.

I realised the other day that I've just past my previous record for time spent in Brisbane since 2002. My previous record was 4 months - last year when I was here for a Whole Semester of uni.

On a wholly unrelated note, I've been dissatisfied in a completely non-specific way the last few days. I decided tonight it's because I'm bored. Sure, I have work, which is interesting (and which started again today - I'm doing two days a week), and assignments and translations that need doing, and a small but dedicated group of friends, but I'm still bored somehow.

However, my stars for tomorrow, according to the cut&paste marvel that is mX, say "You are trapped in a rut of your own making, yet feel powerless to change things. Fortunately ... destiny could soon push you in an entirely different direction".
So maybe that will help the boredom?

The Last of the Japanalia

I promise this is the end of the Japanalia.
This is the entrance to what is known as "restaurant street". The place to go for all your restaurant and plastic sushi needs.
The whole street has a certain resauranty feel to it, as evidenced by these innovative balconies:
This is a pet shop. Well, a stuffed pet shop, but still. This was one small part of the window display.

And this is the famous Golden Turd of Asakusa. No, I don't know why either. (Although apparently it's supposed to be flame or beer foam on the top of the Asahi breweries headquarters)

Leftover Engrish

I was just doing some photo sorting and discovered a whole heap of Engrish I never posted. Obviously, by the time I left Japan, I was failing to keep up with the number of examples I was finding. Here they are. All in just a couple of enormous posts. Enjoy.

First: The Smoking Signs. It's not a "Don't Smoke" campaign. More a "Smoke Considerately" campaign. This is only a few of them that I managed to photograph, mostly from a montage that seemed to be portable-ashtray themed. There were also "where does your smoke go" type ones, and others. None of them seemed to mention health, really. I find them hilarious. Many of them are just so Zen!















And now everything else:
There was another sign for the same pub just near this one that said "Marry Jane". I tried to get a photo, but a drunk idiot saw the camera and wouldn't stop posing in front of it. Typical Japanese...

This was on a soft case I bought for my computer:
My favourite icecream!
You'd think this would be one word they could spell... This was at the airport too. It's possible the shop people were from some other part of asia, but I still think it's no excuse:

I seriously considered these glasses. Afterall, I don't want any flame around my eyes, do I?
The hotel I stayed in in Hakone provided such lovely shampoo and body soap. They made me feel like a sentimental snow crystal...





These two are from Korea. I think this one is a great idea, and we should all be as mild as we can, really. Or as this can:

I didn't eat at this restaurant. I just couldn't get past the menu on the door...

And this is a skipping rope I bought in Sydney, would you believe!

Ellen quote

I just read this quote from everyone's favourite lesbian, and it tickled my fancy:

In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.
- Ellen DeGeneres


It also gives me an excuse to do some lazy linking posting. As Sean is now my flatmate, and will soon be travelling with me as well, his blog and my blog will often mention the same things, so
I plan to use this to my own advantage, and tell everyone about my life by linking to his. So. Here are some photos of our weekend away in the Bunya Mountains. I also have photos, so I'll see if I can find one of me and post it sometime in the next decade. Of course, if Sean was being thoughtful, he would have included one of me to save me this trouble. He also wrote this post about the weekend.