It's interesting to me

[673fa0f65ed66voodoo47]

They Call Me Trinity - hell yes. I know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow.

[673fa0f65f1d7Kolya]

Beans! And leave the pan with me!
You know when I first saw that film as a kid I asked my mum if it wasn't a pain for the horse to drag him around like that on that makeshift sled. And when I was assured the horse wouldn't mind I knew what I wanted to do and become: A smooth lazy slacker just like Terence Hill! Now I still don't have a horse-drawn sled but otherwise I like to think I'm good. Haha.

I really like them too but I don't think they are of much interest to anybody outside of Germany. It's local humor for local people.

Of course there are several countries outside of Germany where people speak German (more or less). And there are many more people in the world who understand it. Is egal!
I only recently joined the club, when I installed a podcast app on my smartphone and browsed for interesting podcasts. Of course I added Die drei Vogonen right away and a few others, but maybe you have a tip for me? English or German is appreciated. Spanish and Italian only if they teach the language!

[673fa0f65f68efox]

Of course there are several countries outside of Germany where people speak German (more or less). And there are many more people in the world who understand it. Is egal!

Of course but what I meant to say is that the stuff they talk and joke about is centered around German culture (media circus, pop culture, politics, themselves) most of the time.

I don't have any good recommendations I could give you at the moment. There was a, at times, hilarious local radio program called "ETA - Eure Tagesordnung" which was entirely improvised absurd humor. But that was even more local and I guess hard to find funny for people from other areas. The absurdity level was bordering on Helge Schneider-levels, which I think is sometimes quite genius but definitely an aquired taste.
http://www.eure-tagesordnung.de/ (-> there are were podcasts)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcY_gMdAF9A

[673fa0f65f8e1xdiesp]

Trinity was the last evolution of the italian western: in the dollar trilogy, indians didn't even exist and the noble frontiermen's driving force were merely greed; Trinity's driving force is the sled on his horse's ass, which might explain why he's so filthy. Every time there's a gunfight, he's so ridiculously good at shooting that it's a gag: not unlike Dante in DMC. All the alternative, gritty and dark westerns of modern times don't even get close to his level.

Theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxdq-_ZVHR4

Cow on the roof:

Terence Hill partnered with a big dude, Bud Spencer. They were both heroes for italian children of the 80s: small scale action movies, with interminable fistfights instead of guns. This one where he's a sheriff, however, was a solo performance. It was a riff on the ET: The Extraterrestrial theme... 3 years before Spielberg's movie came out.

THAT theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFdmY8_BcnU

[673fa0f65fd60Kolya]

Of course but what I meant to say is that the stuff they talk and joke about is centered around German culture (media circus, pop culture, politics, themselves) most of the time.

Most of the time I couldn't even tell what an episode was about. For me it's mostly about them, their characters and their humour and not least about what they avoid: I've listened to a bunch of comedic podcasts now (just now to be precise) and most of them sound like if *I* was to make a funny podcast. Or some random IT guy. It's such a drag, if they even manage a joke you can see it coming half a mile away and then it's repeated 3 times including a bad Helge-imitation and a film quote you have heard a million times before. It just makes you realise how precious and unique Olli and Jan are because they don't do any of that. Oh god I love them. 

As for Terence Hill & Bud Spencer, they were and still are heroes for lots of German 80s kids as well of course. While I enjoyed their modern films just as much when I was a kid, they have aged quite badly, whereas the westerns are still as fun as they used to be. Nowadays I know of course that these westerns were partly parodies of older so called spaghetti westerns, which I never saw as a child. But I still prefer these comedies because of their simple pleasures. Life is always about food and freedom from social conventions (such as politeness or hygiene), the good guys help the poor, good hearted people and win against greedy stupid evil baddies with their wits and fists. It's idealised like a comic but it works due to the actors.
 
I found one more podcast that I enjoyed (German again), it's about the story behind hit songs such as Money for Nothing (Dire Straits), Get Lucky (Daft Punk), The Look (Roxette), Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd), etc. You can find it here.

[673fa0f6602feunn_atropos]

While I enjoyed their modern films just as much when I was a kid, they have aged quite badly, whereas the westerns are still as fun as they used to be.

You take that back, Mister!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbSWtGuobCc
Don't mess with me, I'm the Chefchen!

[673fa0f66041cvoodoo47]

yeah, that's like saying the first starwars trilogy has aged badly because of the big beepy buttons and actors not looking like hookers/bodybuilders.

[673fa0f6605a6fox]

I also like the anarchic  improvised humor of Jürgen Kuttner (known from former radio programs Null Uhr Kuttner and Blue Moon) and Kurt Krömer a lot - both were/are vaguely in the same ballpark of what Böhmermann and Schulz do now.

As for British radio:
On The Hour was brilliant! Created by Chris Morris and the breakthrough role for Steve Coogans cult character "Alan Partridge".

Blue Jam - also created by Chris Morris

[673fa0f6608f9xdiesp]

Kolya: there's only 4 italian westerns that are worth seeing, the ones by their inventor Sergio Leone. All the rest were exploitation clones, each with something special* (back then, having a freudian motivation was still a big deal...) but globally no artistic achievement. When Sergio Leone started shooting them, westerns were already a dying country for old men: he reimagined them, the way boys really saw them (cool, violent, dirty). Back then, you would do that stuff and be ignored because hipsters and their meta meanings didn't exist: not to mention the entry level to make decent movies was much higher, as handling the production and camera equipment of old was all another world.

When my parents went to the movies for the first of the dollar trilogy, A fistful of dollars, knew they had watched something different but didn't realize immediately that it would have made the difference. Cue to the american critics who watched tv westerns and immediately labeled those movies spaghetti, because of the dirty italians who dared to talk back to the master.

If you don't have time to waste, just aim for the best one: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Made in '68 (edit: 66! I couldn't help but go check some snippets on youtube lol), still younger and fresher than any movie with Shit La Beouf. But the previous were already responsible with building the myth of Clint Eastwood, and are masterpieces in their own right (Fistful, and For a few dollars more). Once upon a time in the West is a technical marvel, but not as engaging: check the intro below. I wouldn't suggest A fistful of dynamite instead. I guess you've already watched Once upon a time in America with De Niro and James Woods, that's from Leone too.

*xdiesp's law of movie awesomeness: "there's 5 minutes of awesome in every movie, even in the bad ones"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_tt83itYA8

[673fa0f660a23fox]

Let's not forget Django (only the original one, of course) and Keoma. And also worth mentioning in that regard are Akira Kurosawas' Samurai movies, which were a huge inspiration for Leone. And Sam Peckinpahs' masterpiece "Wild Bunch" also falls into the Spaghetti western genre, I think. Oh, and let's not forget Corbuccis' "Il Grande Silenzio" either!

[673fa0f660b1exdiesp]

Remember this one? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WedAIFuVvhU

[673fa0f660c92Kolya]

I never saw Profondo Rosso. I think I have seen Suspiria, not really sure though. Anyway, it does sound interesting (according to the imdb review) but it will have to wait a bit because I just discovered High Maintenance.

[673fa0f660e99Kolya]

I just watched the first half of Profondo Rosso and it took a while to get used to the non sequitur dialogue, the theatrical set at the Blue Bar, reminiscent of Night Hawks and the unrealistic acting, ie the commissario heartily eating a sandwich at the murder scene, the reporter offering sex out of the blue and so on.
This artificiality and the protagonist's face reminded me of something. After about half an hour I knew it was Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up from 1966 where the same David Hemmings had also played a murder witness in a similarly artificial production. It's not exactly my cup of tea though it's visually impressive and certainly entertaining.

//Note: I'm going to be really disappointed if the murderer is Carlo's gay friend.
//Crap, it's probably the reporter. Eye shadow and strong arms.
//haha, she dies writing a final message. The murderer definitely has the best music. (not the canzone bambini)

Final verdict: Well this got a lot better in the second halve. Some beautiful old house exploration and funnily gruesome deaths. Carlo and the commissario were terrible actors. But I loved the reporter. That scene with her disposing of his former girlfriend's photo and dancing out of the apartment for a holiday in Spain was quite priceless.
I can't help but wonder if David Hemmings popularity somewhat derived from the fact that he resembled Paul McCartney, but either way he's likeable and mostly believable.

[673fa0f661030xdiesp]

It is a very dated movie, mostly remembered because of the truly horrific "secret room" and the synth music theme. At the time, it caused scandal because of the explicit violence: that kind of murder & perversion hadn't been tried before, but now are very trite tropes. I think that overall, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage holds up much better and is his best movie: you correctly noticed that his are inherently detective movies, not just slashers, as the case can be solved with close observation of the first scenes (this is especially good in Bird).

I don't think the acting was unrealistic, at least not in the 70s: it looks haphazard now because of culture clash. I can't remember exacty where, maybe in Inferno, but there was this genius scene in one of his movies where someone was attacked by rats coming out of the sewers. They covered the person, who struggled and called for help desperately: a passing hotdog vendor heard him, grabbed a knife and rushed to the rescue, arrived just in time and killed him.

[673fa0f66128cKolya]

How...nice.

A postcard arrived today from my godchild in Nepal. It had a flower drawn on it and not much else. The preprint on the front said "To mark the start of our new close relationship". Well, I hope she learns to write. I sent her a little writing book with drawn illustrations and descriptions of my favourite palm trees that I grow and of my talkative cat. Then I wanted to tell her about my job. I ended up explaining that it's like making picture books or newspapers, but on a computer. Some new perspective here.
As far as I know I'm sponsoring her, so her family can afford to build a toilet. But secretly I hope that she will rise through the ranks of rural Nepal and invent a vaccine against cancer. Or at least not get beaten and taken advantage of. It's hard to tell what her life really looks like.

Do you still have a lot of audio CDs? And do you still listen to them?
By a quick estimate I have a about 500 CDs, but they just sit there in a box and a board (the more recent ones). So I've started to digitise - wait that's not the correct word - I started to back them up to HD which brings up the choice of the correct format:
Some of them are quite rare, like "In Guz we trust" by Swiss multi instrumentalist Guz. These go to FLAC of course. Others require superior sound quality, like Goldfrapp's "Seventh Tree". But do I really need a FLAC backup of Hole's "Live through this"? Even if I ever felt the need to listen to this album again, won't MP3 suffice? My hearing won't get better and if it's good enough now, why not in twenty years?

And what do I do with these CDs once I have backed them up? I'm far to lazy to flog them on ebay and I like them too much to throw them away. Diary of a hoarder. There was a time when I had to live out of one backpack and it felt great. Fortunately I will get back to that soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71sg-ThOQ6o

[673fa0f662c4axdiesp]

I've trashed most of them, save for a few with sentimental value (same for game cds, movie vhs). What I really wanted, is to join the cinema industry to throw cats at people in the face:

http://youtu.be/oqRFhVexRYI?t=2m45s

[673fa0f66435cKolya]

also, this.

I have a theory about the Fermi paradox: Alien colonisation is taking place and we are a part of it. At some point life was planted on earth with the expectation that we will develop space travel and eventually spread out to other planets. If we ever find ourselves in a situation that a habitable planet has been found but it's just too far away or we have enough already, so we simply send a probe with some eukaryotes there, then we will know. Also that stupid Prometheus movie will finally make some sense!

[673fa0f6646eavoodoo47]

I think any planet would be better off without people.

[673fa0f664bfbJoin2]

I think any planet would be better off without people.

Time for a career change buddy. Maybe a perspective change too. Yes the majority of people are shit stains at our core, but there is always good among the bad. Sometimes more good than bad. Look at Bill Gates. Philanthropist, big achiever, loyal family man...

[673fa0f665188voodoo47]

looking at the big picture, this planet does not seem to be particularly improved by the presence of our species.

the part about Gates is sarcasm, right?

[673fa0f66571fJoin2]

Oh yes, I seem to recall that he cheated on his wife...ironic, if I am not wrong that is.

"looking at the big picture, this planet does not seem to be particularly improved by the presence of our species."

Improved from what perspective? Wildlife & Ecology? If so, well, yes, most of our interactions with animals are barbaric or self-serving, but there is still good in there somewhere.
But we rely on them, just as they rely on their prey. Nature in general is what pisses me off. If this is "intelligent design" it is pretty fucked up. If it is meaningless and random, then it's just....well there are no words.

Eventually when we are very technologically advanced animals will have better lives than shitty nature alone gave them. We are on the right track, providing we don't fuck it up. 

[673fa0f665babKolya]

looking at the big picture, this planet does not seem to be particularly improved by the presence of our species.

The point is that there's someone looking. That someone brings his morals to the table.
A world without humans would not be better off, because there would exist no conception of what's "good".

[673fa0f666181Join2]

Oh yes, I seem to recall that he cheated on his wife...ironic, if I am not wrong that is.

I am stupidly mistaken, it seems. So what has he done wrong then?

[673fa0f666454fox]

Bill Gates has been responsible for a lot of ripping people off during his active MS-years. For the longest time his company has been notorious for aggressively trying to gain or maintain a monopoly in several areas by means often considered ruthless. Many people would trace this behaviour back to the very beginnings of DOS - being a rip off of  CP/M, Apple's Mac and Linus Thorvalds' Linux.

Recommended reading: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/08/15/sco-linux-and-microsoft-in-the-history-of-os-1980s/