Posts by Stephanus

62

ON DISCOVERY CHANNEL TONIGHT - AUSTRALIA REVEALED

by juni in

jw
friends

for those who have the discovery channel, tonight at 9pm eastern time (determine your time accordingly) they are starting a new series about different countries and continents in the world.. it looks very interesting.. juni .

Stephanus

Hmmmm....what is the real Japan I saw....I guess it is the curry shops in Tokyo, little children carrying a bamboo tree, the gigantic concrete "jacks" piled up on the shore to protect it from tsunamis, super efficient rail transportation, houses in the suburbs with garden plots in the backyard, the deer wandering around Nara, Mister Donut, everywhere so very clean, groups of teenagers using the entrances of office buildings as dancing spots in the evening, a half-sized Statue of Liberty in Momoishi, Jesus' tomb in Shingo, a friendly cartoon dog that teaches English idioms on the subway, garage bands lining the sidewalks of a Tokyo park on a Sunday afternoon as teenagers wearing garish club outfits walk about, tasty soft-serve cones, sitting in a bus behind a guy eager to try out his English, tent cities of homeless people in a city park, canteloupes selling for $30 equivalent, temples for WWII kamakaze pilots that served GREAT teriyaki barbeque, homes with old-fashioned wooden waterworks, vending machines with Pocari Sweat, people standing in a subway car holding on with one hand and texting with their cell phones in the other, wearing kimonos inside out, nailbiting sumo tournament on the telly, a pseudo-Arabic style restaurant that serves tasteless egg rolls, feeling totally safe no matter where you are....

Sounds like exactly the Japan I'd love to see! The hi-tech, clean efficiency. Sumo on tv. Eating outlets of various quality. Cartoon dogs. Strange western flourishes/references/adaptations like the Jesus tomb and the Mini Statue of Liberty. The quirky teenage/youth stuff on Sundays. Heck, even the homeless tents and the ridiculously priced melons are the sort of stuff that I'd be wanting to see, because it's THERE, and it's REAL. And you might have to explain/expand a few things to me, like the bamboo tree, "pocari sweat" and Mr Donut... Did you ever post a thread about your Japan adventure?

I'm not so much against old in favour of the new, per se, I just like it to all fit contextually. and documentaries are woefully inadequate for the task, especially if the documentary maker is trying to weave a story into the images that you're not wanting to read.

29

BIG NEWS!!! Study finds that men always thinking about sex.

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

who'da thunk?

http://upi.com/newstrack/view.php?storyid=20061024-033917-3795r.

report finds sex always on men's minds.

Stephanus

Only 54%? The other 46% must be liars. Or, maybe they are over 90 and under 11 yrs old guys.

Or on Lexapro...

62

ON DISCOVERY CHANNEL TONIGHT - AUSTRALIA REVEALED

by juni in

jw
friends

for those who have the discovery channel, tonight at 9pm eastern time (determine your time accordingly) they are starting a new series about different countries and continents in the world.. it looks very interesting.. juni .

Stephanus

Hi Stephanus. Its on 830pm on discovery channel this coming Sunday. I would have dismissed it ordinarily however your input on this topic has me interested....

That's a good thing, isn't it?

I've been watching travel and Nat Geo type documentaries for years now, and I find myself disappointed with most of them. By way of example, Japan is one that I love seeing documentaries and travellogues about. They usually start off in Tokyo. They'll feature that dog statue which is supposed to be a popular meeting place for young people going out for a night on the town, and the Ginza district. They'll show you some of the quirky stuff like the "love hotels" and the "compartment hotels". The vast arrays of vending machines from which you can buy just about anything. The pachinko parlours and the sumo stables The park where all the young people meet on Sunday to show off their crazy fashion statements. Then, after 10 minutes or so, the presenter will buy a Bento box on a train platform, board a bullet train, and then zoom of in search of the "real Japan".

The "real Japan" is usually some far flung village high in the forest encrusted mountains. The presenter will stay at a quaint old Ryokan built of wood and with "real" paper walls. There'll usually be visits to Buddhist temple and other "traditional" sites. And sometimes in deference to the need to arouse "white man's guilt" that many of these shows exhibit, they head off to visit the Ainu. And these latter parts of the show will typically take up the majority of the show, whereas the average Japanese person would probably find that most of it doesn't typify their lives (my gut feeling, anyway).

And myself, I like all the whizz-bang citified stuff they show at the start. If I wanted to visit a Temple, I live 20 miles from the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere. If I want to stay in a quaint country guesthouse, there's plenty of B&Bs just over the mountain from me on the Southern Tablelands, around Bowral and similar towns.

To me the "real Japan" would be the stuff I can't experience here in Oz - the Sumo restaurants serving up the bulking-up, "secret recipe" stews that the attached Sumo Stable feeds its wrestlers. Sumo matches. Pachinko. The Vending machines. Compartment Hotels. Bento boxes on bullet trains. Department stores where floorwalkers take care of your every materialistic need. The shops selling up to the minute electronics. Of course, the list goes on forever,and I'm kind of repeating myself.

And it happens in every documentary. In NZ, it'll start in Auckland or Wellington, and then head off into the country in search of the "real New Zealand". In London, it's off in search of the "real England/Britain". From Toronto or Vancouver in search of the "real Canada". Even from Paris to the "real France"! They don't always use the exact term "real wherever", but you soon get the sense of it.

Well, that's my two cents on the subject, for better or worse!

16

PREACHING TO THE ANIMALS NOW....

by Mary in

jw
friends

ok, someone sent me this and i just about pissed myself laughing.

apparently, there's nothing abnormal about preaching to animals if you need to get those hours in.

i'm still struggling whether or not this actually happened, or if it's just a wt legend:.

Stephanus

I had a mate who's now a mainstream pastor, who once preached to a wombat and a lizard because of the verse that says the Gospel must "be preached to every living creature". And yes, he was only doing it as a pisstake at the time.

41

So how do you keep your clothes hangers tidy?

by ozziepost in

ok, fluffy time!.

mrs ozzie and i are just back home and so there's plenty of laundry to do - that's my job, and i quite enjoy it, but there's one thing that spoils it for me and that's the clothes hangars!.

you know how it goes, some hangars for pants, some for skirts, some for shirts, and then some are plastic, some are steel and some are those confounded wire hangars you get from the dry cleaners.. they're always getting tangled up; it doesn't matter how well i stack them (i've got a basket for them), when i get out in the yard to hang out the clothes, there's always one, it only takes one!

Stephanus

So you mean I'm not meant to leave all my clothes screwed up in a pile on the floor?

Finally: a language I can understand!

41

So how do you keep your clothes hangers tidy?

by ozziepost in

ok, fluffy time!.

mrs ozzie and i are just back home and so there's plenty of laundry to do - that's my job, and i quite enjoy it, but there's one thing that spoils it for me and that's the clothes hangars!.

you know how it goes, some hangars for pants, some for skirts, some for shirts, and then some are plastic, some are steel and some are those confounded wire hangars you get from the dry cleaners.. they're always getting tangled up; it doesn't matter how well i stack them (i've got a basket for them), when i get out in the yard to hang out the clothes, there's always one, it only takes one!

Stephanus

heh heh, yea we're worried about your fashion sense Ozzie!!
Are you a bri-nylon babe? A drip-dry dapper chap?

Hey, you leave Ozzie's fashion sense alone! You ain't seen nothin' until you've seen Ozzie struttin' his stuff on the dance floor, in his purple polyester shirt unbuttoned to the navel to reveal his luxuriant chest hair and gold medallion, his orange flairs and his gold sequined platform shoes. But the Afro really sets it all off!

Stephanus,

of the "born to be alive" class.

62

ON DISCOVERY CHANNEL TONIGHT - AUSTRALIA REVEALED

by juni in

jw
friends

for those who have the discovery channel, tonight at 9pm eastern time (determine your time accordingly) they are starting a new series about different countries and continents in the world.. it looks very interesting.. juni .

Stephanus

Here are some pictures I took in September:

How did it feel, being in such vast, unpopulated country, Leolaia? I've had friends from England tell me that you can drive virtually anywhere in Britain, and there'll always be at least a house or two around somewhere, within visual range. And then they find themselves surrounded by the sorts of vistas shown in your photos... What was it like for you?

62

ON DISCOVERY CHANNEL TONIGHT - AUSTRALIA REVEALED

by juni in

jw
friends

for those who have the discovery channel, tonight at 9pm eastern time (determine your time accordingly) they are starting a new series about different countries and continents in the world.. it looks very interesting.. juni .

Stephanus

Having pretty well dominated this thread since it started, I kinda think I'll have to watch it now!

What time is it on? I'm not missing my Star Trek reruns for anything!

30

I hate it when they make me cry!!

by Scully in

i thought i was pretty much immune to any jws being able to tug at my heartstrings anymore.. mr scully and i were out shopping this morning, when someone called my name and then grabbed me and gave me a big hug.

i hadn't seen her in over 15 years.

back then, she was a teenager and i was about 10 years older than her... but we hit it off really well and mr scully and i became really good friends with her and her parents.

Stephanus

I hate it when they make you cry, Scully!

62

ON DISCOVERY CHANNEL TONIGHT - AUSTRALIA REVEALED

by juni in

jw
friends

for those who have the discovery channel, tonight at 9pm eastern time (determine your time accordingly) they are starting a new series about different countries and continents in the world.. it looks very interesting.. juni .

Stephanus

I have an opal ring; it's beautiful. This will be interesting for me to see where it came from, etc.

What type of opal is it? Different types come from different areas. Black opal comes from Lightning Ridge, in Northern NSW.The place is like a giant trailer park - it's kind of hard to build ordinary houses out there, and they don't seem to do the underground homes like in the South Australian fields. Other opal comes Coober Pedy and Andamooka in SA. There's also another opal mining spot in NW NSW called White Cliffs - people I know who've been there reckon it looks like the moon - grey/white and cratered everywhere. And South Western Queensland is a source of Boulder Opal, so called because it seems to be found in large lumps of rock, rather than in veins or layers at depth.

But while 90% of the world's opal come from this neck of the woods, don't forget your own Nevada! Some of the most startlingly beautiful black opal in the world comes from there. And Mexico produced opal before the Australian and US discoveries. For all we know, the stone in your ring may be more local than you thought!