What made you smile today?

I smiled monday evening (yeah, I know, not today) because my sister told me my niece had announced at the end of the european vacation that she missed me and couldn't wait to see me. Then again when she told me herself on tuesday and her lil brother seconded the sentiment (I mifth yuu tuu).

Coming down from my Sunday late-afternoon walk to the Castle Hill, I drop into the Coffee Inn, a tiny place with upstairs gallery across from some hotel. More perfunctory than cosy, it's an OK enough if not great place (but its got wireless). Tonight, though, they've got a guitarist and a violinist.

They started off (the two of 'em taking up about a quarter of the floor space) with the usual cheesy tourist stuff (Sinatra, Piaf). But, with the group of staff testing the new selection of wines upstairs having gotten a little rowdy and it being a little later, they've gone on to an ever more eclectic mix, and they're having infectious fun with it, the guitarist forever smiling jovially and kinda hopping back and forth with rotund face. So is the circle of three, four, five standing around them singing or clapping along, depending on the song. They played a erratically boisterous version of suicide-song Szomoru Vasarnap, then launched into the song from Kusturica's Black Cat, White Cat, only to return to Money, money, money, its so funny, in a rich man's world.

Earlier on, when the crowd upstairs was just wrapping up the wine test, one pretty girl (plain, girl-next-door pretty) leaned over the railing in glad surprise. You know that feeling, when there's some band playing or whatever, and they suddenly play your favourite song, and you get all thankful and dreamy about it? That was her. Suddenly disattached from the group, she was all in her own world looking down, endeared, surprised, as if she couldn't believe they played her song - her song! - mouthing the word along in grateful dreaminess.

Talking to the Atookaians at the Chicago get-together.

I'll be grinning for a while.

I love the Annex.

There's always something just smileworthy there.

Vicar of Dibley! Another British National Treasure!


I saw something lovely on the drive home....I always worry about dogs being walked, because of how they don't get to do doggy things, like sniff, and roll, and check out the lamppost communication points...always trying and being hurried on...


Well, tonight, a woman was walking a big dog, and happily stopping and let it really sniff and explore stuff..especially the "we all wee here, guys" spot.

Dog was having a ball...no being dragged away

Realizing that today will be another glorious day in Chicago and I get to spend it with some wonderful Atookanians

what made me smile -

my new 'baby' -

A typical case of linguistic "globalizacio": this Sunday, on Margit Island, Budapest, Hungary: the "Million Marijuana March".

(Yes, in English - kinda. If only Farrakhan knew).

I loved Margit Island. Do they still have the horse and traps doing rides for the tourists?

Yep!

And in summer (not quite yet) some of the places downtown move there: Sark and Cha-Cha-Cha both set up a cool terrace up there.

This was a bit earlier (I've moved inside now, getting a little chilly), but - I was

Sitting outside, on the Farger terrace, looking out at the Freedom Square (park) on the left, seeing the sunlight slowly melt up the Magyar Televizio building across from me as it sets, and at the end of the street, on the right, a view to the Hilton, across the river, next to the Fishers' Bastion. And up above, off to the right, a plane is playing up and down the sky, showing off fancy moves for an unseen audience somewhere below. Turning and twisting like a corkscrew, diving straight down, a trail of smoke, up again. Always the slightly lazy hum, buzz in the sky - reminder of slow Sunday summer afternoons on the allotment garden, way back when, when something always sleepily did hrrruummmm somewhere in the distance. Wonder if they're still filming.

Well, a co-worker and I were walking back from lunch and all of a sudden a big wet bird poop fell "splat" between the two of us, and we both thought we got hit Thankfully, neither of us did, but we laughed at the prospect

oH MAN!

(Err, caps, sorry)

Oh man! This is too funny! And too cool.

So, I was browsing through YouTube with curiosity cos I'm, like, ten years late with those kind of things. And I found this video. And I thought it was really cute!

Here it is:

Hey! Clip

Ok, ok, just click it, will ya? Its cute! I know it just says "Hey! Clip", and that doesnt sound particularly interesting, but go on. It'll make ya smile.

So, anyway. Its basically these two girls, pretty girls but not like top models - but cool - who made their own videoclip, synching to The Pixies' Hey!. And its simple, funny, kinda endearing (oh to be 21 and a girl!), and, just - charming. They're just having a lot of fun - its infectious.

So I watched with incredulity, laughed out loud, and didnt think much of it. Left a comment.

Hey, waita minute - how many comments on there? 3,883?

That clip - its been watched fourmillionthreehundredfiftyeightthousandonehundredandseventyone times.

4,358,171 times.

Those two girls - "Tasha" and "Dishka" - they're just students, they're Israeli - they made the clip with a friend as a present for one of their boyfriends - spent five hours filming, putting on make-up, changing clothes - then they spent all night editing this little vid - and they thought it was so cute, they put it on YouTube. Last August.

And catapulted into their 15 minutes of fame. Their clip became cult.

Now, it's got two fansites (one, and two). After a cool-looking feature on news site NRG, one of the girls and the guy appeared at length on an Israeli TV talkshow. "Yedioth Ahronoth", major newspaper, covered them. They went to three million views. Buncha people from across the net started making their own "Hey!" clips and spoofs (all of 'em neatly serving to underline that the original one was really, actually, very well made!).

Then Kevin Smith, the director of Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, was spreading the word about his new movie, Clerks 2. And they were saying, well, he oughta put a trailer-like something on YouTube as well.

So ... he did:

Exclusive clip - Clerks II "Making of" intro by Kevin Smith

Watch it! He talks for like, two minutes and then ... the connection with the whole "Hey!" thing becomes clear.

After that, up to four million views they went. ;-)

Very funny. Gotta see Tashka's MySpace blog entry when she finds out ... and when Kevin then shows up to comment.

I dunno - I just thought the whole story was really sweet!

Aw, so sweet!

StrayCat sent me into YouTubeland last week or something -- she mentioned Boy George, had a clip, I clicked, sozlet wanted to know what was going on, I turned the sound on, she loved it, I realized that there were a zillion MTV videos on there from the 80's and we went crazy. Seriously, we were doing it for several hours. In fact right now I'm writing super fast because she's pounding on me and asking to see/ listen to "Dr. Beat" (Miami Sound Machine, baby Gloria Estefan, she LOVED it).

Johnboy's rule is that any thread left unattended for 24 hours is fair game for a story, be it ever so stupid. So here goes. I got a piece of junk mail at the shop today consisting of a flyer advertising "3D Fireworks Glasses."

The text of the flyer said that this product would provide "Enormous Eye-Popping Excitement Everywhere." and they included a sample.
I tried on the "glasses" this evening, which were vaguely reminiscent of what we older folks wore during the brief craze for 3-D movies back in the 1950's. All this sucker did was break down the light from, say, the streetlight down below my house, into the prism of colors that go into make up what we see as white light: blue, green, yellow, red.
What amused me most was the warning label on the inside of the thin cardboard glasses:
"These glasses are not intended for use over extended time, looking into the sun, performing physical activity, driving vehicles or operating machinery."
One has to wonder if, after I wore these things for a mere 15 seconds and got an eye-ache, they (whoever they are) really felt that some guy was going to drive his forklift around a factory floor wearing them?

Odd, odd, odd. Another weird place I got myself to, made me grin.

I saw in the listings that the Anti-Nowhere League was playing in Budapest tonight. Its this old skool punk band, from back when. Looked it up, its somewhere way in the suburbs, so I hesitated. But what the heck so I went.

Its like, fifty minutes out with two trams, seriously. All the way out by f*cking Kispest, where the highrises start. Have to take a second tram at the edge of downtown that rattles off into Ferencvaros and through a succession of derelict factory buildings and defunct warehouses, or vice versa. The tram is nearly empty, at every stop it screeches to a halt, the doors rattle open for a second pro forma and closed again. Twelve stops on this one. I get out in the middle of freakin nowhere, some big factory wall extending endlessly, I have to find some sidestreet toward the river here, I start walking but in the wrong direction.

The first pretty girl in high boots, hotpants and see-thru top pretty much betrayed the scene. There were dozens of 'em still down the road, paced every dozen or two meters, "dragam, szeretnel valamit?" Err, nope, sorry. Across the street a car alarm is going off where two guys are fiddling with the cardoor, a second later a really fancy car swoops aside them, they gather at its zoomed-down window.

OK, I get to the place, #160, big gate opens to industrial grounds. Discount baby-stuff store, small pram repair place; huge wholesale drinks distribution warehouse; behind and aside those, empty factory buildings with thrown-in windows. Chimneys in the dark. Another drinks distribution company has settled into the small sidebuilding of a huge empty factory, a rickety Skoda van drives off. There's also echo of music, so its here somewhere.

Around two and a half corners, buncha guys hanging outside, you go into a nondescript staircase, up four flights of stairs, little lady sitting there selling tickets. Door open, inside it's a black box, red flames painted on the walls. The support act is still playing.

The support act - called The Yellow Spots - was really cute, in fact. Psychobilly outfit, making a hell of a racket - the singer's got this rockabilly front-only mohawk and's painted lines of blood dripping down from it into his neck, and he's totally going wild. Rest of the band playing with all their might too, the double bass a coffin-shaped black box with big painted yellow spots. The singer steps the off the stage (which is like, half a foot down), walks around singing, falls to the floor, kicks his feet in the air, jumps up again.

All of which is a hell of an effort since they're playing for - <looks around, counts> - an audience of 24. Just enough to fill the coupla benches and two old couches around the floor, and about half of the three tables with benches on the other side. And everyone's sitting there slumped down or back in variations of disinterest. The contrast is kinda surreal. Coupla skins with their girls; betattooed fatso or two with wild hair and beard; guys with t-shirts of the usual suspects (UK Subs, Angelic Upstarts); big rockabilly-punk girl with boots and bangs. And the oh-my-god cutest petite pink-dreaded, sweet-smiled happy bar girl kissing her boyfriend on his arms, smiling, chatting and generally moving around with the easiness, swiftness and gladness of water.

There's also two guys, one with arms full of tattoes and studded belt and the other in American downbeat cool shirt, pants, one of those cap-things LL Cool J used to wear -- and yet they both manage to look so utterly and strikingly gay, its funny in this context.

So, anyway. The band keeps rocking, obviously not for us in particular. In the hallway the other bar girl chats with the lady by the door, who talks about her children. The Anti-Nowhere League meanwhile ended up a no-show - seriously, wait - one of the local guys actually came to search me out inside and yelled in my ear, did you buy a ticket? Me, thinking - what? yeah I did, why? - "come outside!" - eh, ok, me outside in the hall, and it was only to explain to me that "az Angolok" - the English guys, the ANL - they didnt show up. They didnt know where they were, they'd tried to call their agents, nothing, they couldnt be traced, anywhere - so heres your money back, and they thrust the coupla thousand in my hand. Eh, oh, ok!

Instead a local hardcore band started playing, with one of the two gay guys on bass, in fact, and the other jumping around and dancing along - noticably on his own - before stage like a one-man fanclub. They werent very good tho, so even with waiting for 20 mins at the bus stop with the taciturn guy in camouflage pants and army boots and his darts-player looking friend amidst the piles of glass from where someone'd slammed in the bus shelter's glass panes I was home before 1.

Almost had a hole in one!!!! Made my 2!

Nimh: As always, a fine, fine story.
Cjhsa: I didn't know they still had Putt-Putt courses anywhere. Was you near hole in one through the giraffe's legs?

Nope, real course, 186 yards uphill into the wind. 4-iron stiff.