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I had the pleasure of going to my second Red Rocks concert of the summer. John Mayer was the first and he was great.

Yesterday was BareNaked Ladies (with Alanis opening). These guys put on such an amazing show. They don’t just come out and sing the songs as you hear them at home. They have fun with the lyrics, meld into a totally different song (e.g. the song from Deliverance, a song by RUSH, etc).

And then they do synchronized swimming-esque dancing with shopping carts.

Now THAT is entertainment.

Will Ferrell is awesome :)

I now know why you need a manual.

I just got back from The Bourne Supremacy and the car scene was great. I mean, how could Jason Bourne have driven like that if he was in a automatic transmission? :)

My Wife’s Quote

If I have to drive stick, how am I able to drink my Starbucks and talk on my cell phone while I drive?

I had a fun afternoon taking out Emily in a manual car. She didn’t know how to drive a stick shift, so I thought it would be fun to teach her (apologies KT, whose car we used! I will buy you a new transmission!).

Emily took to it surprisingly well. I was braced for some severe jerking, but it wasn’t the case at all. Truly amazed to be honest ;)

Emily doesn’t understand why anyone would drive a stick.

We have the technology that allows the car to take over that part of driving, so why would you bother??

I can definitely understand where she is coming from. It is fun driving stick now and then, but as soon as you are in heavy traffic, starting up hill, and the like…. and then you wish you had an automatic.

Do you really get THAT much better gas mileage these days with automatic vs. manual (especially versus manual drivers that aren’t great ;). And what about the cost. Is it worth the extra 1k to never have to bother with shifting? 1k adds a few cents to your monthly cost doesn’t it? :)

Maybe I am just not that excited about cars, and the act of driving. When the fool rolls back into me, I wish that he had an automatic though!

There is a political parody This Land! which makes fun of both candidates.

It is a bit of a laugh. They have other cartoons too, but the site seems to be getting slammed at the moment :)

Jib Jab

I was always told that sex before sport was a bad thing.

It appears that this may not be the cases, and even if it is it doesn’t matter according to a recent article on sex and the olympics:

Let the games begin

If this was an advertised fact, they may be a bunch more olympians!

I want to get Bush out of office.

I have been seeing lots of people (all over the US) in the streets talking about getting Bush out of office.

Part of me was getting a little worried about the fact that this is pessimistic, and if they are Kerry campaigners they should be spending time using the more possitive “Get Kerry In”. I really hope Kerry comes out from under his strategists, and shows people what he is made of, what he believes in, etc.

However, then a friend told me that

If your pants are on fire, the first thing you do is get them off. THEN you worry about what new pants to wear.

Some would say that this is a bad thing. Others would say “but the other pair are on fire too”. In this case, I really hope we get this guy out. Kerry *has* to be better (no matter what Cam says :) )

It looks like John Kerry uses a Powerbook

Hopefully this isn’t just a prop

I was sitting at a stop light in Boulder, Colorado. Minding my own business.

Then.

BANG!

I was hit from behind by a “dude” in an SUV.

It was a tame crash, and his car had more damage than mine (thanks to the trailer hitch on my car which sticks out).

The reason for the crash?

“I was staring at those college chicks. What can you do”

*sigh* now I have to deal with insurance :/

I love accents. I think it would be cool to be able to put one on at any time (just to play with people).

This may be due to the fact that I am a Brit living in the US (and my accent is fading… which is why I need to keep taking trips back home!).

The speech accent archive is a research project from George Mason University, and it allows you to play 351 speech samples of men and women from all over the world. So cool :)

Our Mission

Everyone who speaks a language, speaks it with an accent. A particular accent essentially reflects a person’s linguistic background. When people listen to someone speak with a different accent from their own, they notice the difference, and they may even make certain biased social judgments about the speaker.

The speech accent archive is established to uniformly exhibit a large set of speech accents from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English all read the same English paragraph and are carefully recorded. The archive is constructed as a teaching tool and as a research tool. It is meant to be used by linguists as well as other people who simply wish to listen to and compare the accents of different english speakers. It allows users to compare the demographic and linguistic backgrounds of the speakers in order to determine which variables are key predictors of each accent. The speech accent archive demonstrates that accents are systematic rather than merely mistaken speech.

All of the linguistic analyses of the accents are available for public scrutiny. We welcome comments on the accuracy of our transcriptions and analyses.