This weeks project is a portion of a larger project. I mentioned before the site Scooping Argentina and the short videos they make explaining Buenos Aires slang to English speakers. For example: Berreta:
My project this week is my first script for doing something similar. You can imagine what next weeks project is going to be. Please leave suggestions for other Northern California slang that should be covered! I've registered the domain Slangsh0t.com and will build a site that can host a series of these in various languages. More on that later as well.
(japanese)
Hello. This is _______________ of Slangsh0t.
Californians have their own slang dialect that is not used elsewhere in the United States. Scooping Californa is here to equate you with the words of the natives.
Today we are going to learn about the word, hella.
Hel la
Hella means 'very', or 'extremely'. It is an intensifier word, primarily used to modify an adjective.
For example:
(english)
That dog is hella filthy, I think it rolled in mud.
(japanese)
or That dog is hella filthy, I think it rolled in mud.
Exaggerated pronunciation can be used to intensify the intensifier:
(english)
That dog is HELLa filthy. I think it rolled in its own feces.
(japanese)
That dog is HELLa filthy. I think it rolled in its own feces
Hella has a diminished version: hecka. This version is primarily used by children who would get in trouble for saying hella.
(english)
That dog is hecka dirty, mom. I think she rolled in the dirt.
(japanese)
That dog is hecka dirty, mom. I think she rolled in the dirt.
I'm ___________. Thank you for watching Slangsh0t Japanese.
Wired has posted an article about MySpace offering an opt-in sharing of four key portions of your MySpace account with other web sites. It was inevitable that some big site would come to their senses and do this. I'm just surprised it wasn't Facebook. As I said years ago:
I've long ranted about how Friendster blew an incredible opportunity to become the social network maintainers of the entire globe. Despite being a crappy application, they were in a position to become the center of everything if they opened up their database of connections to external application developers. Countless applications (both desktop and web-based) would have been tapped into that system and presumably sharing profits with the Friendster corporation. Having a Friendster account would have been as basic as having an email account.
Now MySpace, despite being a crappy website, are in a position to become the center of everything.
Well this week is a fairly intangible project in a way. I didn't really do anything specific, but I'm going to count my participation in Camp Tipsy, a "schmamping" trip organized by Chicken John. We camped at a lake off of I-5 in Northern California and floated a lot of weird things. In a small way I helped build the floating bar out of plywood, foam and driftwood. There were two giant clam shells carved out of foam that were used in a photoshoot and someone rescued from a one-way trip to the dump. There were four pedal boats painted with the Ritual Roasters logo. There was a working fire-heated hot tub on a tiny raft. I shot a bunch of video of the building of the bar and it's inaugural voyage. The whole thing was stupid and wonderful and I can't wait to do it again. Next time I want to build a vessel. I'd love to do a floating catapult or trebuchet but I'll settle for a swing set perhaps. Mie has more photos and description on her blog. Here's my Camp Tipsy flickr set.
Inaugural Launch of the Camp Tipsy Bar from Dav Yaginuma on Vimeo.