In the last couple of days I did some research on Australian and - as a consequence -  New Zealand Kiwi accents (Susi’s comback from Australia) and I came across with this video that I felt obliged to share with you guys. It’s fun to see the New Zealand accent explained after dark years of Unwissen (not-knowing).

By the way. Today’s webtip is leading us to the author of this video. Miss Verständnis. Watch the video after the jump. + AN UPDATE.

Before and After

No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted - Watch a film by Dove on how a Girl’s look is modified to be perfect enough to be qualified as “pin-up”. Dove has been doing pioneer work by hiring every-day women for their advertising. See more short films dealing with controversial topics like manipulation of kids and promoting insecurity about your appearances. Watch the film, right after the jump.

Obviously, starting a blog post to encourage the broad readership of today’s hip blogs is the newest things on the block, so here I am, going for it!

Ask a question - and by that I really mean any question - you always wanted to have answered by me (and not Einstein, so please spare me the scientific explanation kind of Qs) and I will do my best to find a proper answer for it.

Improv Everywhere is famous for launching hilarious missions. Last January they decided to freeze 200 people inside the Grand Central Station hall. Now that the video got really popular (via youtube), people around the world (London - my favorite right after the NYC prank) were inspired and initiate similar missions. It does look like fun and if you think about it, there is sociopolitical criticism behind the idea of freezing people in a world always wanting to keep pace. It’s a good, thoughtful prank, though, isn’t it. Check out the video, more information and links after the jump.

Literally

Ever since the Internet got accessible easily, an Avant Garde descended from Linguistic Heaven to educate us, the stupid common people, literally point at our linguistically weak Achilles’ heel. Ouch, doesn’t the usage of “literally” sound wrong to you? Well, if you are a representative of today’s online patrol on misusage of the English language, you probably answer the previous question with a loud, stark Y-E-S. If your answer is no, please, don’t stop reading now. You already made it this far.

I highly recommend this movie. I might even pick it up and talk about racism, it just doesn’t feel right now… Maybe more time has to pass, since in high school we were talking about it too much. Way too much.

A quick note on two things that somehow appeared and I couldn’t help sharing with you, lieber Reader. The attached video shows a sketch playing with letters. It’s quite self explanatory, so I am not going to elaborate on that one. English - German: 1:0.

The second thing might sound completely out of context, but speaking of a superiority of English compared to German I want to point out how stupid for example 2012 sounds in German. If you want to say the short form (that all people born before ca. 1997 remember) of 2012 you say zwanzig zwölf. Sounds stupid, huh? The English way on the other hand sounds quite elegant and natural: twenty twelve.

Too bad things like that hardly work in German. English - German: 2:0.

If you now feel bad for German, check out my entry on the tohobohu in the English language.

Good evening fellows!

Having ordered an iPod classic black (80 gigs) and an Apple Keyboard, I recieved my two packages today. I was all excited since I haven’t ordered anything from apple in 10 months, so it felt really good to get that kick again. Apple addicts will know what I am talking about.