how to make Google Translate beatbox

Some people with a lot of free time have figured out how to make Google Translate make beatboxing sounds, among other sound effects.  (If you aren’t sure what beatboxing is, it’s what some rappers used to do to make beats with their mouth, especially in the ’80s.)  Here’s the first one I came across:

1) Go to Google Translate
2) Set the translator to translate German to German
3) Copy + paste the following into the translate box: pv zk pv pv zk pv zk kz zk pv pv pv zk pv zk zk pzk pzk pvzkpkzvpvzk kkkkkk bsch
4) Click “Listen”.  (If you don’t have Flash installed, you may not see it.)
5) Be amazed  🙂

If that’s too much work, here’s a shortcut that does it for you (except for #4 and #5).  Beatboxing with Google Translate.

Of course this has spurred competition in certain corners of the Internet.  Here’s some other attempts at beatboxing with it: another beatbox and another.

People have also figured out how to make it produce a helicopter sound, and something which I have no idea about (in Latin, even), and one that illustrates a major loss in translation (listen to the one on the left, then the one on the right).

I’m sure there’s lots of possibilities for this, but it requires someone who has a lot of free time on their hands…

caption contest, man and dog begging

Well, if it isn’t time for another caption contest!  We haven’t even exhausted the last one yet, but surely some of you can handle two at a time, right?  Anyway, this week’s photo is of a man and a dog begging for food.  Why do you suppose they’re begging?  What might they be thinking?  What might a passerby think?  Or what kind of joke can you make about it?

(To see our other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)

the ultimate soup

I’m not usually a big fan of soups.  Some are good, but usually I’d rather have other things for my meal.  But for the past month, my orthodontist had me on a no-chew diet, which equates to eating lots of soup.  So I’ve been trying a lot of different varieties.

All this got me to wondering — why doesn’t someone invent a gravy-based soup?  I don’t mean brown gravy (though there may be a place for that), but using milk-based gravy made from the grease of some meat like fried chicken or sausage.  It could have other ingredients in it like cornbread, or crumbled-up biscuits.  (And if you’re putting cornbread or biscuits in there, you might as well add the butter you’d put on them.)  The gravy soup should also have chunks of the fried chicken or sausage.  This would be the ultimate soup.

Any other suggestions to make it better?

The Comedy Ninja

The other day there was a spam comment here in the form of a trackback (link from another blog), and it said:

“This post was mentioned on Twitter by The Comedy Ninja, Chad_Lambert.”

I don’t think I’ve ever referred to myself as The Comedy Ninja, but it has a nice ring to it.   Is it possible to have a secret identity even to yourself?  Am I secretly a comedian without even knowing it?  I’m not a comedian in real life, though I have played one on the Internet.  And there was that time when I was but a child and I told my parents I would be a comedian when I grew up.  They just laughed and laughed, so I knew I was off to a good start…