Show 584 Tuesday 18 December

Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

The New Zealand Listener is one of the best magazines in New Zealand. Well, I think it is. And it’s probably my favourite magazine in the world.

I had a whole pile that my mum sent me in Tokyo, but I had to get rid of them when I moved here. But I kept a couple. This is one with Scribe on the front, he’s a famous New Zealand musician. And this is Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister.

Anyway, last month, The Daily English Show was mentioned in the listener, which is cool. Except that it’s not really ... because it was used as an example of boringness and irrelevance. Hmmm. Thanks Russell Brown. I love you too.

OK, so it’s not like I haven’t been told my videos suck before and I don’t really mind if people write comments like: “boring!!!!!!!” or “I just wasted 5 minutes of my life”. You know, whatever.

But this is like my favorite magazine and it’s not exactly the kind of debut I was hoping for, so I thought it was worth a bit of a rant.

First let me read what they wrote. This article is about New Zealand YouTube. And when that was launched, one of The Daily English Show videos was featured on the NZ YouTube homepage. And this article is basically saying, the videos they chose sucked, YouTube editors suck, the usual stuff people whinge about.

Anyway here goes:

... the featured clips appear to be the result of an automated text search for the terms “NZ” and “New Zealand” in the title or accompanying information for the video. Thus, a clip from a Canadian community series demonstrating the proper means of baking brownies has been featured because, deep in her profile, the uploader lists her hometown as “the Coromandel, New Zealand”.
While this same collection of boring and/or irrelevant clips sits unchanged on the home page, a rather large domestic news story has been unfolding.

Blah, blah, blah and it continues.
Wow, it’s so impressive how many mistakes you can fit into one paragraph. Where do I begin?

Firstly, as you probably know, The Daily English Show is not a Canadian Community series. I know this says Acadia, but I don’t think it takes too long to figure out that The Daily English Show isn’t actually Canadian and because he’s a journalist you’d think he would spend at least a couple of minutes doing some research before he wrote the story.

Secondly, he says the videos appear to be the results of a search for New Zealand in the title or the video description. Then he says, thus my video was chosen because I have New Zealand in my profile.
Um, that makes no sense. If the first part of his argument was true, then surely my video would have been chosen if I wrote New Zealand in the title or the description.

This guy that wrote this is quite famous in New Zealand and he’s supposed to be some kind of internet guru, so I don’t know why he would write that.

The fact of the matter is, I’m from New Zealand, and I’m probably one of the most, if not the most prolific New Zealander on YouTube – and The Daily English Show features quite a lot of New Zealand content. So I’m not at all surprised that they chose one of The Daily English Show videos to put on the New Zealand homepage.

Another thing the video definitely wasn’t trying to teach the “proper” way of making brownies ... no, that wasn’t the point.

I also think it’s quite ironic that he is accusing the YouTube staff of not doing enough research, when if he did more than about 5 minutes research, I don’t think he would have come up with these ridiculous conclusions.

And finally, I think it’s outrageous, that he is totally implying, that I’m not even from New Zealand.

“... deep in her profile, the uploader lists her hometown as “the Coromandel, New Zealand”.

Uh, why wouldn’t I write that?! That’s where I’m from.
OK enough ranting for today. Time for the news.

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today, more than 15 thousand people in Samoa marched to parliament to protest the government’s plans to switch the road code from left hand drive to right hand drive.
In Samoa, people now drive left hand drive cars on the right side of the road.
But the government is planning to change the rules so that vehicles would drive on the left side of the road.
Many people aren’t happy about the plans. And today’s march was Samoa's biggest protest march in five years.
The speaker of the house spoke to the protesters. He thanked them for coming to Parliament, but said the Government could not give them an immediate answer.
He said the government accepted the protest and asked the protesters to now let the government go through the proper procedures.
“Wherever God leads us to we will go, it is the way to the future,” he said.

And that was Stick News for Tuesday 18th of December.
Kia Ora.

THE SNOW REPORT

at King #4

with Hirafune from J-First

Where are you from?
どちらからですか？

出身は札幌です。
I’m from Sapporo.

How many times have you been snowboarding in Niseko this season?
ニセコは今シーズン何回目？

今シーズンは１０回目ぐらいですね。
This is about my tenth time this season.

Are you a skier or a snowboarder?
スキーヤー？　ボーダー？

スノーボーダーです。
Snowboarder.

How is the snow in Niseko?
ニセコの雪はどうですか？

極上ですね。
It’s awesome.

How have the conditions been recently?
最近のコンディションはどうですか？

昨日まであまり良くなかったけど、やっとニセコらしくなってきた感じだと思います。
It wasn’t very good until yesterday, and now it has finally become like real Niseko.

conversations with sarah
#356 Is that very different from Samoa?

Step 1: Repeat Brad’s lines.
Step 2: Read Brad’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Brad Why does the Samoan government want to change the side of the road people drive on?

Sarah I don’t know. Maybe it’s so that it’s the same as most of the other countries in Polynesia.

Brad Do most countries in Polynesia drive on the left side?

Sarah Actually, I don’t know. New Zealand does, and I just assumed that most of the islands were the same.

Brad Does Samoa have strong ties with New Zealand?

Sarah Yeah, it used to be, um, controlled by New Zealand.

Brad Is it independent now?

Sarah Yeah, apart from American Samoa, that’s still controlled by America.

Brad Is that very different from Samoa?

Sarah Mmm, yeah, I think so.

notes

rant = v. speak or shout at length in a wild, impassioned way
whinge = to complain in an annoying way
prolific = producing many works

links

today's STICK NEWS pictures

music

show start
artist: Anawin
album: A glimpse inside the bubble
track: Little jazzy
from: Arles, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo

the snow report start
artist: Olga Scotland
album: Scotland Yard
track: Absolute
from: Moscow, Russia
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

the snow report bgm
artist: OPRACHINA
album: The jazz farm
track: Torti
from: Roma, Italy
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site
YouTube channel

cws start
artist: San Sebastian
track: Happy Sad
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: Groovetracks
tracks: groovetracks ending
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: nino
album: Backface
track: WawWaw
from: Lille, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

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