01 Nov 2005
This is a seriously cool program. Sure, it’s just a frontend to mplayer/mencoder, but it’s so easy! Having said that, I’m still not game to touch more than half the options, but whatever :P I now no longer need to pull out my Coldplay Live 2003 DVD to watch tracks on it :D
(I’d ripped it before, but couldn’t figure out how to do individual Chapters as separate files, so the resulting file was the whole DVD)
And yes, this program is probably illegal in Australia, as in the US. But then so are iPods prior to iTMS.
31 Oct 2005
So, as soon as I uploaded a moderate-resolution WMV version of the video to year12.joahua.com, Google Video decided it was going to approve it. However, it seems the Google version is pretty poor quality (yes, I uploaded the same version to both Google and my own site), so if you want quality it’s best to go with the year12.joahua source — though the audio quality on both of them seems to be about the same.
The Google Video version will play in your browser (using Flash Video).
The hosted Windows Media version can be saved to your computer (right-click, “Save Target As…” or “Save Link As…”, depending on the browser).
The Windows Media version is ~23MiB, so I’d assume the Google version will be (probably significantly) less than that.
Now with added lyrics!
(Thanks to Ben, though I don’t know I agree with the end bit, and think he’s hashed out sections where it’s entirely possible nothing was even said :P)
I’ve had Mrs Christie for three years,
When she speaks it’s like music to my ears.
Having her has been such a blast,
Marcelo told me that he wants to touch her arse.
I started out with Oud then Sinovich,
Year 12 English proved to be quite a bitch.
You may think you’re pretty far from first,
But don’t worry Tyrone will always be the worst.
Always try to steal my essays from you,
‘Coz when it comes to English I just don’t have a clue,
And now it’s coming down to HSC,
I’m going to need the Lord to pray for me.
I went down to class just the other day,
And I had something really witty to say.
I was just about to speak but then just my luck
{the part where} ? except Garrett never shuts up.
Always have to steal my essays from the ‘net,
Here good looking dont know what to do,
And now it’s coming down to HSC,
I’m going to need the Lord to pray for me.
We’re going to take it down a bit.
(Hums)
So let’s get down to Module A, B and C.
Oooo, Ondaatje’s making love to me.
Oh baby, baby, won’t you come, come with me,
To an imaginary journey on pages seventy two and seventy three.
When I get that feeling, I need textual healing,
Ondaatje is making me feel, so damn fine.
The syntax literary techniques and devices all showing,
Shakespeare is getting my juices flowing.
I’m going down to Kubla Khan, (Oooooo yeah)
And sweetheart I want you to come, (You come)
When I take that Coleridge off the shelf,
Damn, he makes me want to touch myself.
When I get that feeling, I need textual healing,
Ondaatje is making me feel, so damn fine.
The syntax literary techniques and devices all showing,
Shakespeare is getting my juices flowing.
(Textual, textual, textual healing,
Textual, textual, textual.) x2
When I get that feeling, I need textual healing,
Ondaatje is making me feel so damn fine.
The syntax literary techniques and devices all showing,
Shakespeare is getting my juices flowing.
Textual, textual, textual healing,
Textual, textual, textual.
Now, who wants to timecode it for me?! Captions await! ;-)
31 Oct 2005
I discovered this on Wikipedia today or yesterday… I can’t remember how.
On September 15, 1595, a group of pupils of Edinburgh High School barricade themselves in because of a dispute about holidays. When adults break in, pupil William Sinclair shoots city bailie John McMorane dead. The boys were arrested but acquitted later.
Um… proof violent video games aren’t the sole cause of school shootings? They were even acquitted!
Yeah, tangential. Whatever.
I think I absolutely killed Extension English today. Not by shooting, but still. Felt very good about the whole thing. My creative was an inversion of a story I’d previously written for an exam (this was the closest I think I’ve ever gone to repeating myself in what I write for an exam), which was based on Robert Browning’s poem The Laboratory (go ahead, click, it’s very readable). The last version was an extrapolation of the persona’s experience (extending to her murder of two women), whilst this is a journal entry from a remorseful apothecary.
He knows from the persona’s monologue her intent is to kill two women for her husband’s [alleged] indiscretions, yet is compelled by her imperative to “take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill”. Afterwards, he is overcome with guilt and fancies he could kill himself with a drop of poison dissolved in his wine, which he takes and swills around until the colloid is no longer visible, dissolved in the glass… but he does not wish to take another life, to put another mark against his already-damned conscience. So he pours the wine back into the bottle, with some care, and replaces the cork, returning it to the darkened cellar. Thus, he will die by poison and not at his own hand, seemingly freed from the damnation of suicide, absolved from his crimes — and he must die because he is London’s last apothecary of this kind [that is, the malevolent!], bringing death unjustly and remaining beyond reproach, the crime of poisoning enacted by other agents.
I’m a little annoyed we don’t get the papers back, actually, but oh well. I didn’t particularly care about English Advanced, but I was actually quite impressed with my efforts for this one! Modern, on the other hand, will be rather the opposite… so I must go and study. Or try to. Cram.
30 Oct 2005
Just for fun. And because Google probably won’t get this indexed until after the Extension English exam tomorrow commences, which means the only people likely to see this in time are those who go to my school anyway ;-)
At any rate, good luck to anyone who feels like trying to memorise any substantialish chunk of this by tomorrow…
Without further ado, quotes in PDF format. (53.1KB)
If you want fulltext, Project Gutenberg has a nice HTML version (better than plain text because it’s not scattered with stupid linebreaks).
29 Oct 2005
I managed to get my finger stuck in a car boot last night (n.b. the rest of me was outside the car), so posting will be a little light for the next few days due to mobility restrictions and the difficulty of typing. This should be the case anyway, as I have an Extension English exam Monday and a Modern History exam Thursday, but the increased strain is, inevitably, the deciding factor.
It was my right hand, so I’m planning on using a scribe for at least the Extension exam (which could be kinda fun, because I can talk about that stuff quite easily, at length. Just like delivering a seminar, only slower and with more pauses to tell some kid in year 11 how to spell various big words that are fun to throw in essays.)
Somehow my left hand has managed to pretty much escape damage all my life, whereas my right has scars on my thumb, middle finger (courtesy of an ice skate), and now a mashed-up nail on what I am reliably informed is known as the “ring finger” — apparently a technical term, because it appeared on my medical certificate!
So there’s my excuse for not writing lots. Meanwhile, have a picture of a helicopter.
p.s. whilst I can type–this post is testament to that–, it takes an inordinate amount of effort not to appear as though drunk at the keyboard, if you will. So, it’s altogether safer just to stay away.