German comedy
I know I’ve been a derelict blogger since moving to MIT, allowing far, far too many of you to concentrate on work. But today I’m back with some quality procrastination material.
My colleague (and sometime überliberal commenter on this blog) Aram Harrow points me to a safety video for German forklift-truck drivers, which was posted to YouTube with English subtitles. As Aram says, it starts slow but is definitely worth watching to the end.
It’s funny: just this weekend, I was volunteering with the Cornell Alumni Association at the Greater Boston Food Bank. My job was to unload 40-pound boxes of canned goods from a forklift truck and place them on a conveyor belt. (And no, this is not something I’d normally do. Normally I’d offer to write a check to pay for ten people stronger than I am to unload boxes for the needy. Long story short, I was invited to do this by an individual of female persuasion.)
The whole time I was unloading boxes, I too was a bit worried about forklift safety — but, as I now know, not nearly as worried as I should have been.
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Comment #1 August 5th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
… special.
Comment #2 August 5th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Some trivia: the narrator is well known in Germany due to some TV education series. He was also the news commentator in the German dub of Starship Troopers that made the propagandistic TV broadcasts in the film to one of the rare examples of a dub being actually better than the original.
Comment #3 August 6th, 2007 at 12:44 am
As far as the video, both funny and EEEEEEEEEEW!
Comment #4 August 6th, 2007 at 2:16 am
It’s too late, you’ve already set the cause of procrastination back by centuries.
Comment #5 August 6th, 2007 at 8:46 am
It’s the same brand of humor as “Morto the Magician”.
Comment #6 August 6th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Long story short, I was invited to do this by an individual of female persuasion.
Scott do you mean some female persuaded you? Or some guy persuaded you like a female? I know it’s hard to resist in the former case:)
Comment #7 August 6th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Nagesh: See if you can figure this one out.
Comment #8 August 6th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
I would guess it’s the former one. Since your girl friend (as I know from this blog) is of Asian ethnicity she must have persuaded you to serve in the typical Asian style. And you could not resist it. I hope I am not using politically incorrect statements.
But I asked only because you have not been so convoluted in mentioning your girl friend, so why would you use such a sentence!!
Comment #9 August 7th, 2007 at 3:07 am
It actually reminded me a lot of Sam Peckinpah’s “Salad Days”.