Thursday, July 08, 2010

#1236 Travis Millard, Rakuten Goes English, Geek Out, Tony Ogle

Show 1236 Thursday 8 July
Watch today's show at
YouTube or BlipTV.

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

Today we’re studying a video from the @Google Talks channel on YouTube.

Google regularly post videos of people who come to talk to their staff. And a lot of them I find interesting. But I saw one recently that I particularly enjoyed. It was a talk by an artist called Travis Millard.

I found his speaking style really quite refreshing after listening to a lot of super polished speeches on channels like this and TED talks. I really liked his laid-back and humble way of speaking. And I liked his art too.

He talks about his life story and the work that he’s done and the stories about how he came to be doing particular jobs.

You can turn on the subtitles for this video too, so if you want, you can read along while you’re watching.

The start of his story goes something like this:

4:41
I grew up in Kansas City and my mum was a self-taught artist. She did a lot of painting when she was pregnant with me and with my brother. She didn't really paint otherwise. She mostly would do it for fun or relaxation. And so their basement is just littered with these old paintings that she did and they are really sweet.

To be littered with something means that there are many objects lying around untidily.

If you do a search for be littered with you can find many examples of how this expression is used, such as:

Wal-Mart stores are littered with wasteful products this month




STICK NEWS

Kia ora in Stick News today a Japanese company which one of the biggest internet companies in the world has announced it’s making English its official inhouse language.

Rakuten is an online shopping mall which was founded in Japan in 1997.
Wikipedia says it’s now among the top 10 largest internet companies in the world.
Last week the company announced it would make English its official inhouse language by the end of 2012.
They said executive meetings and internal documents would be in English.
The president made the announcement speaking in English at a press conference.
He said making English the company’s official language is expected to improve its employees’ abilities and broaden their perspectives.


And that was Stick News for Thursday the 8th of July.
Kia ora.


Let's go shopping!
Why leave the house?


Top ten?! We should be number 1!


Oh crap. Goodbye job...
Don't worry the world's going to end in 2012 anyway.


Are we making a new Austrian or Australian site?
I didn't catch that either... let's do both just in case.


Our goal is to become number 1.
WORLD DOMINATION! Mwahahahahahaha.....


Dude, I found a way to hack into our English test scores!
Wicked! This policy is improving our abilities already!



Word of the Day

Today’s word is geek out.

You probably know what a geek is, but do you know what it means to geek out?

Here’s the top definition from Urban Dictionary.

The act of becoming emotionally and physically aroused by the sight or the thought of a technicality of a certain topic of major interest. It resembles an "orgasm of the mind". Geeking out is not a universal feeling. As a result, if one person in a group geeks out, everyone else is wondering in curiosity what is wrong with that person.

So it’s basically when you become really excited by something that’s of particular interest to you, but not necessarily to anybody else.

In his talk, Travis describes a moment where he geeks out. He says it’s a little story of me geeking out.

He went to Japan and they’d just arrived and they took a train somewhere and the train doors opened and the first guy he saw standing on the platform was wearing some shoes that he’d designed.

35:12
This guy is standing there with the shoes I did for Vans. The first dude I see standing there, and I'm like "Oh My God!" and I'm taking pictures of him and he just freaked out.



conversations with sarah
#788 Who’s your favourite artist?

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

Veronica Who’s your favourite artist?

Sarah I don’t think I have a favourite artist …

Veronica How about your favourite New Zealand artist?

Sarah Mmm, I don’t know. Oh, one guy that I came across fairly recently that I like is Tony Ogle.

Veronica Where did you see his work?

Sarah Ah, in a book actually, one that I borrowed from my uncle.

Veronica What’s his work like?

Sarah Mainly paintings of beaches and surf. They’re really cool.





Music video featuring Travis Millard's artwork:




links


Travis Millard's site: Fudge Factory Comics

Rakuten - English
Rakuten - Wayback Machine

music

show start
artist: Kevin MacLeod
track: Future Cha Cha
from: Brooklyn, NY, United States
artist site

WOD start
artist: DJ iPep's
album: Home Mix 2007
track: Game Toy
from: EVREUX, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: Kevin MacLeod
track: The Jazz Woman
from: Brooklyn, NY, United States
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: triptracks
track: triptrack2
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: DovEporTar
album: Test night n. 1
track: Il sigaro a meta
artist at Jamendo
album at Jamendo

Did you notice a mistake in this script? Please leave us a comment and tell us! We really appreciate people pointing out our mistakes.Thank you.

Have you translated this script - or part of it - into your language for English practice and published it on your blog? Please leave a comment and a link so other people can read your translation. Thank you.