Haha that's very well done. Nice cross promotion for this weekend, too. (UFC 183 is Saturday, and it's going to be "off of the hook," as the youths say.)
Due to the snow emergency, there have been a bunch of 'press conferences' with mayors. Why the fuck does there have to be a person gyrating next to each one. It's really fucking distracting. Apparently, about 2% of America is legally deaf (50% hearing loss). I certainly have sympathy for those that have such a challenge, but Jesus Christ, put on the closed captioning. I'm tired of these idiots gyrating next to the speaker so that 2% of the population feels included - even though they are included already - as the overwhelming majority of our news is accompanied by visual words/media. Maybe I'm just an old cranky asshole.
Seriously. I often have the tv volume super low if the wife is sleeping or I'm practicing scales. I'll have the CC on, and at times I don't, I have yet to be unable to follow a news story because of all the graphics and banners. Not like I saw the press conferences, turned the volume up and thought 'Oh, fuck, I thought they were talking about a terrorist event, not a snow storm.'
Do you ever read the CC, especially with live/nonscripted events? It's terrible, sometimes misses entire segments, often puts wrong words in. Also, sign language has methods to convey tone, which words do not. I think this pretty much epitomizes first world problems. "Oh God, my news program is just ruined because of the presence of someone off to the side helping disabled people."
Yes, I read the CC all the time. Is it perfect? Nope. But it gets the point across. I'll grant you that the tone may be missing, but again, when I'm watching the news, not sure how much tone has to do with facts. A declaration of a state of emergency is a declaration of a state of emergency, regardless of whether the mayor is speaking with a James Cagney accent or not. Yes, I do find it very irritating. I also find heat and running water to be pretty cool, and would be majorly annoyed if they didn't show up at my house, despite the fact that billions of people have neither. Ultimately, if you live in a first world country, almost all of your problems are first world problems. The whole 'first world problem' meme is getting very tired. Although your second point is of interest. At what point do you (as a society) require interpreters/accommodations for disabled folks, assuming there's another unobtrusive way for them to obtain the same info? For instance, more people speak Spanish in this country than are deaf. Should every news event have a Spanish Interpreter speaking at the news conference? I don't know what the answer is, given the fact that there is so much access to information with the click of a button. So yes, maybe I'm an asshole, but I do find it distracting.
You do understand the point of the meme isn't a literal interpretation of a first world problem, right? I thought it particularly appropriate since you're talking about something that doesn't cause you even a minor inconvenience. I'm not offended by this, just having a chuckle over someone being angry about support staff for people with disabilities... and you probably shouldn't acknowledge you're being an intolerant asshole and then get defensive when someone laughs about it. In fact, many programs do have a Spanish (or other language) audio track, for this very reason. You often hear it announced at the beginning of the program that the Spanish audio is broadcast through SAP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_audio_program
Personally, I find this conversation hilarious. Because, I am imagining a muppet and an electric guitar arguing with each other.
Every year I have about a dozen of the fellas over. Super Bowl begins at 7.30pm here. We start poker at 3:30pm with a few too many beers. Play until about 5:45. Whoever is out can hit the Playstation and play FIFA or Madden, or take the n64 out and Super Smash bros. 6:00pm we head to the other room for the bigger TV and get situated. From there, I present the following, which slightly changes every year: This year's menu: - Chili - Casadillas - Salsa Guac Dip - Artichoke Dip - Smoked Salmon slices - Chicken Wings - Calamari - Double Cheese Log with Maple Syrup - Eclairs (three dozen, yes from scratch) - Oatmeal cookies - Banana bread (I make a fuckin' mean banana bread) - Fruits & Veggies, of course. - 8 large pizzas (1 cheese, 2 pepperoni, 1 veggie, and 4 gourmet I'll choose on Friday when I have to let the shop know) Yes, for 12 people. Then again, usually a few more people show up last minute. We eat ourselves into a food coma. By the end of the game, it's a struggle just to stay awake. Some people even pass out before the end of the game (although who can blame them after last year's Bronco meltdown).
I find it hilarious because he used the word gyrating. So I'm picturing the sign language interpreter doing it like this: Spoiler In college I was in a sign language interpreter group which I will not name on the off chance anyone cares enough to search it out. We put on shows where we would pick songs and then set up skits and sign them and we traveled the world. Okay fine. Not the world. But at least three hour drives sometimes. Every now and then my family likes to rub it in by having the ONE video we have of it playing when I go downstairs. Like I'd ever do that to them. In one skit I may be wearing a grass skirt. I also may have been a dude in another skit. It was a glorious time. I'd have my costumes in my wheeled suitcase and sometimes after dress rehearsal at 3 am in the morning I'd be wheeling that shit down the side road. It was serious business. Our opening number was always in blacklight and we would be in all black and wear white gloves and just sign our opening number. And we also did Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" the same way. I had the opening line so if anyone wants to know how to sign "Hello darkness my old friend" hit me up. Or "silence like a cancer grows". I forget the rest.
Please tell me that is a joke that none of us get... I'm nothing more than a casual UFC/MMA fan, but UFC's deal with Fox and their recent promotion strategy has been really effective and impressive. I watched the latter of half of the McGregor and Gustaffson fight cards the last week simply because of good (albeit excessive in the case of McGregor) promotion and interesting crowd potentials based on location. Say what you will about McGregor, but man cuts a hell of a promo and caused my friend I was staying with last week to suggest we watch the fight despite not even being a boxing fan cause he "wanted to see him either back it up or get his ass beat". Reminds me of how pumped we would get in college for big boxing matches because of HBO's 24/7. Now if only they can make people forget about that whole class action lawsuit...
My girlfriend signed us up to do a mystery shop visit at a bar downtown for brunch on Sunday, so I'll be getting my fill before we head over to my sister and her husband's place for their annual Super Bowl party. They have a room with a big ass projector screen and lots of space for watching the game and a TV downstairs for the Puppy Bowl* and dogs to run around. Win-win. I don't know what we'll be bringing to the party aside from beer. Lots of beer. I could bake chicken wings again, they're pretty simple. *I started scrolling through the lineup and can't pick a favorite... it's just too much.
Dibs on Mexican House Pickle as my fantasy baseball team name! Or, wait, is that what Bluedog's wife calls him? I just assumed it was a homemade quesadilla, but with armadillo meat.
Personally, I am incredibly fake offended and outraged that the TV isn't catering to those who are both deaf AND blind. These are citizens with rights, and Networks should be supplying each and every one of them with an interpreter who will come to their house and jab them with a sharp stick in Morse Code.
Wow, that has to be the most insensitive post I've ever read, and I read every post in the race thread. I find signers highly entertaining, because certain words, are just random motions, then other words are EXACTLY what you think they'd be. I find that fascinating. Binary has a point with closed captioning not catching everything, but holy fuck its 2015. We've had closed captioning for how long and it's still not right? We can speak into a goddamn phone and have it pop out another language, but we can't get closed captioning on point?
I've been dicking around with emergency/portable food supplies. I'm not laying in a year's worth of potable water and comestables, just packing some stuff away for another Sandy-type event, or for some potential extended camping/canoeing trips I'm eyeing up. A couple of months ago I made a batch of hard tack that came out well - it was, indeed hard, but tasted pretty decent. Today I picked up some MREs - vegetable lasagna, garlic chicken and beef strips in asian vegetables. Some of you folks have direct experience with MREs as non-optional meals, but I've always been fascinated with the whole meals on the go thing. Unfortunately these don't come with a FRH, but instead have a fuel gel pack to heat up water. I'm probably more excited than i should be about trying the these.
I'm amazed at how many MRE videos are on youtube. Some are from suppliers, but most are just guys trying them out. Although in many of them you can only see hands, or a foot for some reason, it's obvious that these dudes are huge. Arms and hands with no wrist, and fingers so fat they look like sausage casings.