2008: an summary

So today's New Year's Eve, which means it's time for looking back at what happened in 2008, don't you think? To help me remember all that I rely on the Wikipedia entry on 2008. I just highlight some events, or else this blog post would be filled by reports on suicide bombings and other wars, coups and mass killings…

2008 was designated as:

• International Year of Planet Earth.
• International Year of Languages.
• International Year of the Potato.
• International Year of Sanitation.
• International Year of the Frog.
• European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.
• The Year of the Rat (by the Chinese calendar)

I hadn't even noticed all that. I even think that the "International Year of the Frog" deserves being mentioned for its lack of concern from the media.

• January 1 - Cyprus, Malta, adopt the euro.
• January 21 - Stock markets around the world plunge amid growing fears of a U.S. recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. [SL: "Premonitions? Premonitions?"]
• February 19 - Fidel Castro announces his resignation as President of Cuba, effective February 24.
• February 24 - Raúl Castro is unanimously elected as President of Cuba by the National Assembly.
• March 29 - Presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Zimbabwe.
• April 8 - Privy Council of Sark dismantles its feudal system to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. and the first elections under the new law will be held in December 2008 and the new chamber will first convene in January 2009. [SL: WTF?]
• June 12 - Ireland votes to reject the Treaty of Lisbon, in the only referendum to be held by a European Union member state on the treaty.
• June 27 - President Robert Mugabe is reelected with 85.5% of the vote in the second round of the controversial Zimbabwean presidential election. [SL: Come on…]
• June 27 - After 3 decades as the Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates steps down from daily duties to concentrate on philanthropy.
• July 2 - Íngrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages are rescued from FARC by Colombian security forces. [SL: Hearing non-stop news reports about the rescue and so on completely drove me crazy!]
• August 8–24 - The 2008 Summer Olympics take place in Beijing, China.
• August 17 - Michael Phelps surpasses Mark Spitz in Gold Medals won at a single Olympics, winning 8.
• September 10 - The proton beam is circulated for the first time in the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, located at CERN, near Geneva, under the Franco-Swiss border.
• September 15 - Following negotiations, President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara sign a power-sharing deal, making Tsvangirai the new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
• October 3 - Global financial crisis: U.S. President George W. Bush signs the revised Emergency Economic Stabilization Act into law, creating a 700 billion dollar Treasury fund to purchase failing bank assets. [SL: The beginning of the end for the world economy…]
• October 9 - Global financial crisis: Following a major banking and financial crisis in Iceland, the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority takes control of the 3 largest banks in the country: Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, and Glitnir.
• November 4 - United States presidential election, 2008: Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States and Joe Biden is elected the 47th Vice President. Barack Obama becomes the first African-American President-elect.
• November 22 - Frozen water is found on Mars. [SL: Useful when the Americans bring their Coke or Pepsi on the red planet…]
• December 6 - Riots spread across Greece after a 15-year-old boy is shot dead by a special guard of the Greek Police.
• December 10 - The Channel Island of Sark, a British crown dependency, holds its first fully democratic elections under a new constitutional arrangement, becoming the last European territory to abolish feudalism.
• December 16 - Ruins of an ancient Wari city are discovered in northern Peru. [SL: And what about the crystal skulls?]
• December 31 - An extra leap second (23:59:60) is added to end the year. The last time this occurred was in 2005.

These people passed away:

• January 11 - Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist, conqueror of Mount Everest (b. 1919)
• January 22 - Heath Ledger, Australian actor (b. 1979) [SL: a dreadful loss.]
• February 10 - Roy Scheider, American actor (b. 1932) [SL: "We're gonna need a bigger boat."]
• February 13 - Henri Salvador, French singer (b. 1917)
• March 19 - Arthur C. Clarke, English author, inventor, and futurist (b. 1917) & Hugo Claus, Flemish writer, painter and film director (b. 1929)
• April 5 - Charlton Heston, American actor (b. 1923)
• May 26 - Sydney Pollack, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1934)
• June 15 - Stan Winston, American special effects and makeup artist (b. 1946)
• August 9 - Bernie Mac, African-American actor and comedian (b. 1957)
• September 1 - Don LaFontaine, American voice actor (b. 1940) [SL: he was the voice you could hear in many trailers]
• September 26 - Paul Newman, American actor (b. 1925)
• October 20 - Sœur Emmanuelle, Belgian-born French nun (b. 1908)
• December 13 - Horst Tappert, German actor (b. 1923)
• December 24 - Harold Pinter, English playwright (b. 1930)

That's it. Join me on 31 December 2009 for a summary of the year!

"The Dude abides"

You probably remember the fucking short version of the Cohen brothers' masterpiece The Big Lebowski; now let's watch this video featuring (nearly) all instances of the word "dude" in the movie… just because the Dude abides! ;-)

Borat learns to taste wine

Christmas Week: "Muppet Christmas Carol" (2)

I know I've already told you about my liking of The Muppet Christmas Carol; today I'd like to show you two of the songs but this time in French.

Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine)'s introduction:

Jacob and Robert Marley (Statler and Waldorf)'s song:

Note that Michael Caine is dubbed by Bernard Dhéran.


"Ça sent bon Noël" / "It feels like Christmas" (sung by Richard Darbois)

Christmas Week: "Ernest Saves Christmas"

Let me introduce you to a sadly underrated movie, Ernest Saves Christmas. In this second film of this franchise focusing arount silly character Ernest P. Worrel (played by the late Jim Varney) the hero is a taxi driver who picks up an old man at the airport. We soon find out that he's the real Santa Claus and he's looking for a successor.

If you don't want to watch the whole film, or because you can't find it — which would be perfectly normal, for to my knowledge it was broadcast only once in Belgium and fortunately I still have the tape. This is the French version, with a brilliant voice job by Jacques Balutin and the late Philippe Dumat as Ernest and Santa, respectively.

Christmas Week: Home Alone alternate endings

I felt it very appropriate to show you some good alternate endings for Home Alone and Home Alone 2, given this is Christmas Week.

Kevin is stronger than he thought:



And he's a killer!



He gets his ass kicked:



And of course, Casey Jones saves the day:

Christmas Week: Alles kan beter (10)

Special Christmas songs!

Christmas Week: "Christmas with the Joker"

You probably remember the silly Joker Christmas song:



Hey, I found the whole Christmas with the Joker episode (from Batman: The Animated Series):

Have a happy aXe-Mas!

Christmas Week: Top Gear gifts

If you haven't still found a Christmas gift for your beloved ones, Jeremy Clarkson and his disciples May and Hammond have some suggestions:

Hitler and Star Wars

Hitler didn't like Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace:



Hitler deals with a Star Wars convention in Berlin…

Death Notice (5): Horst Tappert

A week ago Horst Tappert passed away. He was made famous by playing inspector Stephan Derrick in the eponymous series, which was, as you know, criticised for being very slow and a good alternative to sleeping pills. The elderly (including my own grandparents, I admit) particularily enjoy watching an episode because it was broadcast round 1 or 2 pm, i.e. the perfect time for taking a nap. Since nothing happened in the episode anyway they didn't miss anything at all. Although it seems very unlikely a Derrick episode actually featured a stunt! Check this out:



And here's a very nice parody made by singer and songwriter Jean-Luc Fonck (mimicking Tappert's gaze perfectly) and Aurélia Dejond for La Télé infernale:





Unfortunately I didn't find an Uncyclopedia entry on Derrick, but I found these funny banners:

Extended musical journey

Please listen to these two great unreleased pieces of music coming from the Indiana Jones an the Crystal Skull soundtrack by the brilliant John Williams.

Area 51 warehouse escape



Jungle chase extended version

I love Rocky Road

In "I Love Rocky Road" Weird Al Yankovic claims his passion for rock and roll… I mean, rocky road ice cream:



Note that the source text is "I Love Rock 'n Roll" by The Arrows.

"This is the most wretched hive of scum and villainy" (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope)

Lego Batman and Robin are up to kick some ass, so a lot of villains gathered for an epic struggle in Gotham City:



"Heath Ledger's Joker, Jack Nicholson's Joker, Mr. Freeze, Irina Spalko, Evil Monkey, Darth Vader, Penguin, SpongeBob Squarepants, Bane, the Riddler, my ex-girlfriend, Stewie Griffin, Patrick Star, Skeleton, Kit Fisto… Wait, wait: he's not a villain; he's a jerk… He died, he died of the Emperor. Two-Face, Mr. Krabs, Guy on the Skateboard and Dr Octopus."

Flying lesson

Der Untergang von Fortis

Just like in that video from Der Untergang (which was given fake subtitles about Hitler getting angry when he finds out somebody stole his car) somebody had the brilliant idea to turn Hitler's speech into a comment onto the financial crisis:



PS. Thanks to Magali for suggesting this video.

Two years on YouTube

That's right, I signed up for my YouTube account two years ago. Since then I've watched 6,787 videos of which 509 are in my favourites (although the number should be bigger because a lot of them were deleted in the course of years — and it's now even reduced to 506 actually!), I have 223 subscribers and 11,444 people have visited my channel. That is mainly because I uploaded 69 videos which were seen by 3,078,989 people (at 10 am).

Here are my top eleven videos:

("Why top eleven? Because I like to go one step beyond" as would ThatGuyWithTheGlasses say.)

#1: Lou & Andy Swimming Pool
Views: 387,261

#2: Lou & Andy Chessington
Views: 206,456

#3: Andy & Lou -- Blind Date
Views: 145,351

#4: Lou & Andy Ice-Cream
Views: 132,612

#5: Star Wars III - Master Yoda vs Emperor Palpatine
Views: 127,804

#6: Lou & Andy at the Hospital
Views: 121,968

#7: Andy Lou - Bowling
Views: 119,308

#8: Lou & Andy at the Pub
Views: 108,886

#9: Andy and George Michael
Views: 105,121

#10: Andy & Lou -- Baby Jesus
Views: 98,613

#11: Andy & Lou - At the Petshop Buying a Snake
Views: 87,204

Angry German Kid strikes back

Remember that angry German kid getting crazy about an Internet game? Here's another hilarious parody with him commenting on a beauty pagent contestant who vainly tried to play the Star Wars theme on a trumpet…

Indiana Jones IV: alternate endings

Indy isn't very lucky:

Check mate

For those of you who play chess, here's a nice animated Play-Doh battle!



Today's Unclyclopedia featured article: chess, of course.

Fort Boyaux

This sketch by Les Inconnus is a brilliant spoof on the French TV programme Fort Boyard where a team of six people has to complete tasks on an old sea fort in order to earn money.



"La salle inondée… 'y a plein d'eau !"

"Il est pas là le p'tit nain ?"

"Daniel : il aime le foot, la natation, le tennis, le vélo, l'athlétisme et surtout le sport."

"Richard : il aime le karaté, le kung-fu, le tai kwendo, le full contact et les fleurs."

"Jean-Yves : il aime la philosophie, l'archéologie, les sciences, la théologie et le journal 'L'Equipe'."

"Florence : elle aime Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Richard Gere et Gérard Holtz."

All but rock and roll

What's worse than making someone from the 1950s listen to Van Halen? Play the video to find out!

Alles kan beter (9)

Minifigures

Lego bricks celebrate their 50th birthday this year, and the Lego minifigure its 30th. A fan made a video about those inventive little people, revisiting History:

History

When first reIeased in 1974, Lego minifigures were at the same scaIe as the current minifigures. However, these figures differed in tooling and articulation: they had solid torsos without separate movable arms, solid lower body pieces that were not moveable, and heads without printed features. They had a small variety of headpieces, including caps, pigtail hair and cowboy hats. An image on Minifigs.net shows the earlier, larger scale, human figures.

The first modern minifigures were released in 1978, with seven different figures in Castle, Space, and Town themes.^[1] For the next 11 years, minifigure heads were produced with a simple facial expression, rendered as two solid black dots for eyes and a smile, also painted in solid black. In 1989, minifigures in the Pirates theme were produced with different facial expressions.^[1] The Pirates minifigures also included hooks for hands, as well as peg legs; this was the first departure from the traditional body parts.

Another departure from traditional parts was the use of spring-loaded legs. These legs are joined together at the top. These legs were only featured in basketball sets, 2002-2003.

By 2003, Lego had reportedly produced 3.7 billion minifigures.^[2]

(from Wikipedia)

Sinterklaas komt aan

In order to make a living Jean-Pierre Van Rossem (a BV known for being an anarchist and for a big fraud scandal) decided to play Sinterklaas and today he visits a typical Flemish family. This fragment comes from Chris and Co.



To understand the Monopoly/Karl Marx joke, please read this:

He became famous with 'Moneytron', a stockmarket investment company that could offer apparently endless returns.

Van Rossem had developed a model that could predict the stock market and beat the capitalist system. His sympathies for the theories of Karl Marx did not stop him investing for the very wealthy in the world and accumulating 800 million dollars for himself. He declares himself an "anarchist".

Weg met Sinterklaas!

The 'zwarte Pieten'(or Sinterklaas's black helpers) decide to revolt and kick their boss's ass. (Nice alliteration, by the way.)

"Computer friends"

A nice promoted video on YouTube today, partly praising Apple computers qualities:

Blokken

"Goeienavond en welkom in Blokken!"

If you've never heard this sentence, it means you've never watched this quiz programme hosted by Ben Crabbé, a 'BV' playing as the drummer for De Kreuners.

Here's a parody of the show made by Chris en co:




Next week the 3000th 'aflevering will be broadcast, consisting in a final between the best contestants that this show has known (and I underline here some of our familiar 'Konnex-uitdrukkingen':

Blokken 3000

In de aanloop naar de drieduizendste aflevering van Blokken komen enkele sterke kandidaten uit het verleden terug. Uit de laatste vijfhonderd afleveringen werden acht ijzersterke spelers geselecteerd: vier mannen en vier vrouwen. Zij hebben stuk voor stuk een indrukwekkend parcours afgelegd en krijgen nu de kans om de grote winnaar te worden van de drieduizendste Blokken.

Vanaf maandag 24 november nemen de acht superquizzers het tegen elkaar op in een poulesysteem. De vier mannen mogen de spits afbijten. Zij spelen van maandag 24 tot vrijdag 28 november vijf afleveringen tegen elkaar. De twee mannen die minstens twee keer winnen, gaan door naar de finaleweek. Vanaf maandag 1 december is het de beurt aan de vrouwen. Ook voor hen geldt dat de twee beste vrouwen doorgaan naar de volgende week.

Tijdens de finaleweek van maandag 8 tot en met vrijdag 12 december spelen de vier toppers tegen elkaar. Wie tijdens deze week minstens twee overwinningen behaalt, mag naar de finale op zaterdag 13 december.

De twee allerbesten spelen tegen elkaar in de 3000ste Blokken op zaterdag 13 december, in prime time. Dat wordt een historische veldslag.

Now you know what I'll be watching on 13 December!

Shame on Him! Sexdecies: Jared Diamond

Today when I visited the (official) germ@namur blog to read a new entry (a report on Jared Diamond's lecture in Namur) I was shocked: how can such an intelligent man (I presume he is, for he was awarded the , Pulitzer Prize Guns, Germs, and Steel in 1998) have a combover? Look at these pieces of troubling evidence:






Besides, he has what I call a "morality teacher beard"…

Borat does Cambridge

Borat goes to Cambridge University… and tries to learn cricket…