This is> dotBen

…the two top events for tonight (a Friday night) are:

“Helvetica” @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

“A fascinating independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated it’s 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use.” more…

• $10 tickets
• more on upcoming.org

or

“Arse Elektronica” @ The Porn Palace

“A conference about pr0nnovation.
…
According to a study by Simon Smith, more than 800 items were registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office as sex toys between 1840 and 1997. Among them was a condom with a built-in computer chip that can play music. Progress?

From the depiction of a vulva in a cave painting to the newest internet porno, technology and sexuality have always been closely linked. No one can predict what the future will bring, but history indicates that sex will continue to play an essential role in technological development.” more…

• $5 for tonight’s opening party and ‘performances’
• $25 to attend the conference over the weekend
• more on upcoming.org

Oh my dayz, I just watched the opening night of Big Brother UK 2007… it’s an all-woman house.

OMFG! Someone at Endemol (the production company) came up with a pretty clever idea there…

• Men like watching a group of pretty ladies
• Woman love watching other women, esp to bitch and compare
• An all-woman house gaurentees bitchyness for the press

But mate, some of the women in there are fine, with a capital F if you get my drift. The two 18 year old twins are bare choong. On their BB website profile it says they describe themselves as ‘twincredible’ - no shit.

They entered the house wearing identical pink mini-skirts, high-heels and holding a lolipop. And they’re twins. And 18. That can’t be legal.

Sofia commented “I wish I was uStreaming you watching this as it’s so funny to hear your comments this”.

Finally shouts out to 53-year old East-London resident Carole. She’s a Respect Party nutter but don’t hold that against her - she seems like a proper salt-of-the-earth East Londoner. I can imagine her pushing a trolley up Poplar high street.

Despite being in USA, I’m definitely going to be watching this year’s BB…

A great article from the BBC News website shows how ridiculous the current state of the railway system in the UK is.

Here’s an example for London -> Manchester (a trip many of my former BBC colleagues will no doubt be doing more often as it looks like BBC Future Media is moving to Manchester after all ).

“To get to Manchester from London early, the only throughout return fare is the open return at £219. The train’s first stop is Stoke-on-Trent so you can’t split it into short sections.

Instead, buy an open return to Stoke-on-Trent (£182) then a saver return Stoke to Manchester (£12.30). Total £194.30, saving £24.70.

This works because the cheap saver return from Stoke is valid on any train, any day - and for the homeward journey this is no problem as all bar one train a day calls at Stoke-on-Trent.”

First up, for my American readers, yes that’s about $480 to get a return from London to Manchester - a 207 x 2 = 414 mile journey.

But because of the all the different train companies, and their different fares, it’s possible to pay ridiculously different amounts depending on whether you buy a straight through ticket, or a series of returns to local stops. Oh and no, regardless of how you ticket, you still sit on the same train - this ‘hack’ doesn’t require changing trains.

And I though the CalTrain sucked…

Someone forwarded me this nice little intelligence test.

You have to flesh out the number-orientated phrases, given only the first letter of each non-adposition word. Eg:

• 24 H in a D = 24 Hours in a Day
• 1000 Y in a M
• 13 is U F S

According to the site:

“Believe it or not, this type of test can be a good estimate of intelligence (if you excuse the cultural bias). People who did well on this type of test are likely those who are gifted with verbal ability and linguistic pattern recognition. This sort of assessment would discriminate against those with non-linguistic pattern recognition (like solving jigsaw puzzles) and spatial intelligence (like the ability to use a map or see hidden figures in a drawing).”

Out of the 33 questions, 12-18 shows you are are intelligent and anything above 19 is considered genius. I got 26 right so I guess it’s not that accurate after all!

This is probably a great example of where being dyslexic actually helps me over those with ‘regularly wired’ brains.

I quite like these kinds of puzzles, so let me know if you know of others - or if you’re willing to share how well you did on this one.

I can’t believe people didn’t believe me - untill now…

And my first ever laptop was a Gateway too (this is a viral clearly commissioned by Gateway - check the cow-themed packaging everywhere).

It’s as shame Gateway are crap these days, and no longer available in Europe. Every serious playa knows IBM Thinkpad is where the straight-G shit is at - it’s the BMW M5 of the computing world man. Sick.

Don’t even get me started with Apple Notebooks - they’re like silver Audi TT roadster’s. Everyone’s got one - where’s the individuality?

Beggin’ mansdem think they’re all flossin in that, but it’s wasteman.

Following on from my last post I thought I’d explain some more about the unusual words I sometimes use, especially in social settings.

The multi-cultural youth of East London, where I live/lived before moving to San Francisco, have created their own sub-dialect of English. The media call it ‘Jafaican’ and academia is dubbing it ‘Multicultural London English’.

In East London, we have no word for it - it’s simply how the youth of today speak. But it’s everywhere you go - on the buses, in the schools, on the street, in the bars… It’s all around you.

Although the media might choose to call it “Fake Jamaican” (Jafaican) and attribute it to Ali G and co, the sub-dialect actually takes much of it’s influences from the predominantly Bengali population of Tower Hamlets (the major borough in East London). However Jamaican, along with Arabic and American street slang are also apparent.

Examples of the use of language are easy to spot on the Internet - just head over to a message board aimed at the East London underground music scene, such as RWD Magazine Forums. Audio examples are harder to find, unless you listen to an East London online pirate radio station broadcast such as excellent RinseFM.

Ok, so here’s a list of words and phrases, with examples, for you to peruse and enjoy. And translate, if you don’t get what I’m saying.

• Air: Being ignored
  Eg:“If you say that again I’m giving you air”
• Ballin: Making money
  Eg:“Danny can pay, he’s ballin these days”
• Bare: Very
  Eg:“You is bare bare butters”
• Beef: To cause a problem
  Eg:“Are you stirring the beef?”
• Begging: Talking rubbish
  Eg:“When you said you was rich you was well begging”
• Bird: Woman
  Eg:“Did you see those two birds on TV?”
• Blud: Mate, friend
  Eg:“Easy blud, wassup?”
• Brapp!: Sign of respect + approval (often towards a DJ or friend)
  Eg:(as DJ plays new tune) “Brapp! Brapp!”
• Bredrin: Mates, friends
  Eg:“Me and a couple bredrin are coming round your place”
• Buff: Attractive
  Eg:“She’s bare buff”
• Butters: Ugly
  Eg:“Your mum is bare butters”
• Chung, Choong: Attractive
  Eg:“Check her out, she’s well chung”
• Click: Gang, crew (from Clique)
  Eg:“I’m tight with his click”
• Clown: Idiot
  Eg:“When I said you was dumb, I was clowning”
• Cotching, Cotch down: Hanging out
  Eg:“I was cotching down with my bredrin last night”
• Creps: Trainers, shoes
  Eg:“Check out my Nike creps”
• Cutting your eye: Giving someone a nasty look
  Eg:“That girl on the bus was cutting her eye at me”
• Deep: Bad, misbehaving
  Eg:“Brian was being well deep at the party”
• Dissed: Disrespected
  Eg:“He was dissing you bad when he was chattin’ to me”
• Dutty: like Grimey (from dirty)
  Eg:“Man, that beat’s dutty”
• Endz: Neighbourhood within a metropolitan area.
  Eg:“Are you really from the endz?”
• Feds: Police
  Eg:“The feds are looking for the gun”
• Fehs: Face
  Eg:“You is a happy fehs”
• Fit: Attractive
  Eg:“She’s pretty fit”
• Flossing: Earning money and respect
  Eg:“Now I is got my album out I is well flossing”
• Gals dem, gallem: Women
  Eg:“Da gallem in that car were fit”
• Gash: Pussy, or woman
  Eg:“I’m looking for gash tonight at the club”
• Get me?: Understand?
  Eg:“I need a smoke, da’ya get me?”
• Grimey: Simple but nice (from Grime music)
  Eg:“Man, that girl’s so grimey”
• Hype: Exciting
  Eg:“Believe, the hype is real”
• iJat: Idiot
  Eg:“Don’t be such an iJat”
• Innit: Isn’t it? (seeing positive confirmation)
  Eg:“I just got paid, innit?”
• Jacked: Stolen
  Eg:“I got my wheel’s jacked last weekend”
• Link: to buy, procure (usually drugs)
  Eg:“I gotta go link me some weed”
• Lonesome Js: On your own
  Eg:“I was walking home with my lonesome J’s”
• Mandem, mansdem: man, men
  Eg:“All the mansdem need to chill out”
• Manor: The area immediately around your home (think block)
  Eg:“Are you from my manor?”
• Nang: Good, nice
  Eg:“I just had some nang KFC”
• Nuff: Very
  Eg:“The DJ was nuff heavy”
• Off the hook: Wonderful
  Eg:“Wow, that’s off the hook”
• Road: On the street
  Eg:“I’m on road tonight”
• Safe: Friendly acknowledgment
  Eg:“You alright Dave?” “Yeah, safe”
• Sick: Amazingly good
  Eg:“Your creps are bare sick man”
• Skets, Sketz: Bitches, easy women
  Eg:“I’m seeing a couple of skets tonight”
• Spitin’: Saying
  Eg:“He was spittin shit on you”
• Teefed: Thieved
  Eg:“Who just teefed my lighter?”
• Wack: Crap
  Eg:“Don’t talk wack”
• Wasteman: Whatever, shut up
  Eg:“I speak the Queen’s English”… “Wasteman”
• Yard: Home
  Eg:“I’m heading back to da Yard”
• Yoot: Kid (youth)
  Eg:“The yoots from the estate let the air out of your tires”

I love Snatch. The film that is - see I have to quantify that because if your American you might think I was talking about the more private parts of female anatomy.

In fact, that is yet-another example of the very point I want to make.

My favourite quote from the film is when Turkish responds to Tommy’s miserable temperament with line: “who took the jam out your donut?”.

I found myself quipping the line yesterday to the confused reaction of an otherwise miserable friend. See the thing is, you can’t say that here in America. They look at you all odd.

There’s no such thing as jam. It’s called jello.

And donuts have holes in them, not jam/jello.

I’ve now modified the phrase to: “who took the hole out your donut?”. But it’s not the same. And even then has connotations of it’s own, which are very much unintentional.

When you see something like this do you assert his foolishness or praise his courage?

This guy was a serial train-surfer in Germany, who wanted to find the ultimate challenge before he died from leukemia.

His ultimate challenge was surfing Germany’s InterCityExpress, which travels at over 250kmh (thats more than 150mph).

Sure it was dangerous but one can only imagine what the rush he must have felt during the time between those two stations, as he realized his ambition.

Finding courage deep down inside in order to do something brave is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. Don’t worry mum, I’m not about to go ride the back of CalTrain.

But I think everyone needs to know what their ambition is and find the courage needed to acheive it. And sometimes that does mean taking a calculated risk.

Apparently the best way to sterilize your kitchen sponge is two minutes in the microwave.

Not only will that kill bacteria and viruses it will also remove protozoan parasites too.

Sadly 2 minutes isn’t long enough to guarantee the eradication of spores. For that you’ll need to zap your sponge for 10 minutes.

BTW: it MUST be a damp sponge ok? Doh!

Away from work and ‘the (internet) industry’, my experience of American life seems to get weirder and weirder. Maybe I should dress up like a Russian/Eastern European and make a film about it… oh that’s already been done.

I was reading a blog which had a link to what they described as ‘Chicago’s leading girl-on-girl roller derby team’. Like any hot blooded male, I though that sounded like something I ought to check out - you know for educative purposes.

Now… Roller Derby might not be anything new to you if you grew up with it here in American, but I’d never heard of it. And now I have, it makes no sense at all.

The rules for roller derby, according to Wikipedia, are as follows:

“Two teams of five skaters, wearing protective gear such as helmets, mouth guards, and pads, take up positions alongside each other in a pack formation. Each team consists of either four blockers and one jammer, or, rarely, three blockers, and two jammers. Helmet colors or designs are typically used to differentiate between player roles.

Initially leading the pack are special blockers known as pivots, who set the pace and give the other blockers direction in order to strategize and keep the pack relatively tight.

Blockers (including pivots) start skating at the referee’s first signal. A second signal is given to launch the jammers, who must catch up to the rear of the pack. Jammers navigate through or around the pack, then lap around the track until reaching back of the pack again. The first jammer to get through the pack legally is dubbed lead jammer and may call off the jam at any time.

Scoring commences when the jammers lap around the back of the pack and go through for a second time. One point is scored for each member of the opposing team passed by an inbound jammer (passing is determined by the skaters’ hips). Blockers try to stop the opposing jammer from passing them, while defending their own jammer, whom they can assist by pushing or pulling (whipping) in an attempt to advance them through the pack. The jam concludes after a fixed period of time, usually 2 minutes, or when the lead jammer calls off the jam. Until then, both jammers are free to lap the pack again and again.”

Makes no sense to me at all. But then I read:

Physical contact between players is frequent and sometimes violent. Body blocking is allowed, and elbowing is allowed in some leagues, but participants are not allowed to trip or intentionally punch other players. Violence may leave the track and may include striking opponents with available objects. Roller derby participants generally adopt stage names and gimmicks, evoking comparisons to professional wrestling. However, unlike professional wrestling, roller derby (in its current revival) does not involve fixed or scripted matches.

Wow, girl-on-girl skater violence. Now I totally get it! Sort of.