Every morning, I rummage through my digital files and find an old cartoon that doesn’t embarrass me, and I show it to you. What I choose from is a written directory of file names, which usually gives me a clue as to the topic of an old comic strip if not a direct mental image of a specific strip. This morning, I ran across a file tag that included the word “komikern.” I thought, “What th’ heck is ‘komikern?’ That doesn’t sound familiar!” Well, it was this oldie from 2006. This is what I was talking about the other day: the speed with which technology moves on. A decade ago, I was doing jokes based on the menu presented at the beginning of video DVDs, which seemed quirky and vaguely threatening at the time. Of course, kids understood it all innately. Today? DVDs? Kids? Fuhgidaboudit! Of course, it doesn’t help that by the time I am conversant enough in something new that I can draw a cartoon about it, that “something new” is already out the door.
43 responses to “Was Ist Das?”
We are really getting a lot of technologies intermixed. I know people who still use cassette players. Personally I miss the VCR. I liked recording events as they happened to hear the commentators of the day. Another fun thing is to watch the commercials at the time.
What exactly would embarrass you about an old strip? An artistic experiment you decided wasn’t working? A joke that doesn’t work after 10 years? I think the people who come here enjoy seeing and learning about the process, and are happy to see the old strips; don’t worry about us.
With today’s smart tv’s, could you hook up an external drive to use as you would have used a VCR?
I wish I had bought one of those combination VCR/DVD recorders so I could have transferred all the things I had recorded off the air. When I moved I threw away 3 boxes of VHS tapes I could no longer watch because my VCR had died and I couldn’t find another one.
For Steve and others who enjoy old commercials –
https://news.iu.edu/stories/2017/12/iub/releases/14-clio-collection.html
For the commercial fans, and those who want a nostalgia boost of what Christmas looked like on tv before the 200o’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y888mx7hMZ0&list=PL3r_o0rfEakd5LSgAHQFF6KQxDWOsdNrS
I once worked with a British company called Whizz Computing. Their slogan was: “If you’re where it’s at, we’ve already been there.”
More relevant now than ever.
Falcon [or tercel] may not still be there, but this is heaven: a S-facing ledge, often out of the wind, where you can annually raise chicks, and there’s a ready food supply below, mostly starlings and rock pigeons. No need to fly S. [Tercels are male falcons; speelczech now knows that.]
https://explore.org/livecams/falcons/peregrine-falcon-chesapeake-conservancy
Peace,
“Oldie” strips are fine for us “oldies” – can’t remember 5 minutes ago – but have fond memories of VCR’s and the like !! don’t apologize
Tried looking up a translation of Janis’ German dialogue. Turns out that Komikern actually means comedians and comic strip is … Comicstrip. See, we all know some German already.
L’academie française is supposed to protect the sublime French language from such atrocities, but if you phone a French outfit, the receptionist is apt to say, ” ‘allo .” Paix,
This may be your Anglo-centric ear hearing a cockney accent where there is not one. The telephone came into heavy use in English speaking populations, then exported to other cultures. The habitual form of greeting, spoken naturally by a Francophone would drop the initial aitch. But I defer to villagers more traveled than I.
Allo! Oui, ici Jeanette, qui parle?
Welcome, Jeanette!
” ‘Allo” was standard French phone response in ’52, and later in ’85, probably not influenced by Cockney as much as by standard French elided “h”. Odd that they elide the h even when they retain “Le”, as in Le Havre. Rex Harrison: “The French don’t care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.”
Bein venue!
I have no idea, and think that is probably incorrect. It is how I hear a line from the musical Cabaret. The Jeanette line above was an introductory French textbook, a slim purple covered workbook from a Junior High course, well worn, may have been years old by the time it came to me. But for some reason that line has stuck with me.
It was the first in a dialog to be performed by paired students, aloud for the class. Because many pairings did not progress very far, this was by far the most frequently heard line, as everyone started over from the top. Again. And again. Jut allors!
Ah, I see you have restated my response in your own words again. Glad you agree.
Recently, I heard someone say that one of the lesser known reasons for our involvement in WWII was to keep American safe from compound nouns.
My favorite quote regarding German came from Mark Twain:
“Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, this is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.”
bitte hören sie jezt gut, aber sprechen sie nicht noch
This phrase sticks with me because it preceded every recorded lesson used in the two German classes I took in college. Meaning is simply, please listen well, but don’t say anything yet.
jetzt, dropped a t. And German seems like a linguistic Lego set. When they need a word for something they just keep adding existing words together till they get what they were after.
As Mark Twain put it: An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech — not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary — six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam — that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it — after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb — merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out — the writer shovels in“haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein,” or words to that effect, and the monument is finished.
A German word that I ran across while inserting appropriate artwork into a set of manuals being translated by a local company:
Röntgenwagen
In English that would be X-Ray Cart. The German manual was thickest, then came the Italian and French, followed by the English and, thinnest of all, the Spanish.
BTW, it’s not particularly cold here at 27F, but with the wind gusting up to 35 mph, it’s a three-dog night.
Back in grad school, we had an expression indicating displeasure with something or other – as innocuous as losing a card game or as serious as having one’s research “scooped” via an article in a current journal. “Ich habe gehabt geworden sein!” Supposedly, it meant ‘I have been had!”, but doesn’t really mean anything. It served mainly to impress those who didn’t know German.
Right now, TruckerRon, it’s 51F in Camarillo. That may sound balmy to you, but it’s cold for me!
Good morning Villagers….
Going to be in the 50’s here today….(dang kitteh won’t stay of my keyboard)..then it’s all down hill. No snow though, just cold.
GR, how’s Jackie?
This kitteh just doesn’t get it that I need to hands to type.
be back later…..
🙂 https://i.chzbgr.com/full/9106800384/h39B769F3/
Impala, I think.
https://explore.org/livecams/african-wildlife/african-river-wildlife-camera
Peace,