Ebaby! Blog

All the interesting people I met on my trip to Turkey inspired a new kind of lesson that debuted last week. It’s so new, we’re not even sure what we’re going to call it yet! We’ve been calling them “interviews” or “taking it to the streets” around the office.The idea is that I’ll interview real Americans and make lessons out of our conversations. All of our English lessons are improvised so that our members can be exposed to real, conversational English. But this new type of lesson will expose the members to a wider variety of voices and slices of American culture.The first interview lesson was with a lovely woman named Amanda who works at a local video arcade that is also a bar called Ground Kontrol. I decided to put up her interview first because she did such a good job of speaking clearly and using good vocab words. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone annunciate “buttons” so well! Check out the video.

The next lesson goes up on Monday but you can get watch the video below. It’s an interview with Devan and my former roommate Matt, who works at a guitar store called Old Town Music.

These interviews were inspired by Studs Terkel’s book Working, in which he interviews people about their jobs. But the next lesson, which is slated for a week or two down the road (but once again the video is below) probably represents the way we’re going to go with this concept. It’s an interview with a motorcycle rider, but the most compelling part is when he takes a moment to talk about himself and says that riding motorcycles is how he find his “freedom, peace and serenity.”

At John’s suggestion, I’m going to make future interviews more personal and more about the subjects. It should be fun because I love hearing people talk about their lives. It’s something I’ve done on my personal blog as well.Anyway, we’d love any input you have about this new type of lesson, so comment or send me an Ebaby! message via my profile. Photo: Yes, my jacket was picked to look like Ron Burgundy.

You were never supposed to see the photo to your left. It’s from a lesson that we shot in my semi-abandoned house that we decided never to use because it was “too dark.” But the plot development it inspired stayed in the English, baby! soap opera, much to Devan’s dismay.

See, when the cast arrived to film some scenes at my house–which has holes in the walls and very little furniture– we thought, “What can we do with this apocalyptic setting?” It occurred to me that Devan should be addicted to drugs. We already established her supposed propensity for substance abuse in this drunk driving lesson, and she was recently broken hearted.

So we threw a sheet on the ground and some empty bottles and did a really depressing scene where I come in to Devan’s apartment and discover that she’s sold everything for drugs.

I should say depressing in retrospect because it was actually hilarious at the time. First of all, Devan was supposed to be addicted to pot, which you can’t get addicted to. But in a lot of countries, pot a major crime so no one doe it, so we had a good laugh about people in Asia believing someone could get addicted to pot and sell all their stuff to buy it.

Second of all, Devan and I used to be roommates and I happen to know that pot treats her very poorly (like, vomiting for days) so she never ever smokes it. So it was a little inside joke for us too.

But then we got to the next cast session a month later, filmed on the streets of downtown Portland, and I told Devan we had to shoot a new scene about her being addicted to drugs. Suddenly she really didn’t want to do it! I finally convinced her that she should do it for the members because they need to know a lot of the good drug vocabulary that would come with the lesson and for me because I already had the rest of the plot build around it.

But it took four takes to get the scene we ended up using. Devan kept going silent when someone walked by because she was embarrassed. So if you see Devan around, tease her about her pot addiction for me, will ya?

Our members are so smart. OK, they’re not smart all the time, like when we added the “report member” button to weed out spammers and everyone pressed it like crazy for no reason, but a lot of the forum posts are really intelligent.

Learning a language forces you to be creative. I remember when I got good enough at Spanish to speak fluidly but I didn’t have the vocab to be very straight forward. So I’d come up with interesting ways to get across what I was trying to say. I think that’s what’s going on in this comment on another soap opera episode about online dating in which Marni discovers her new boyfriend may not be as great as she thought.

Unless taxi-as-relationship is a common cliche in Viet Nam, that’s pretty original. Another member may have coined a clever phrase this week on our lesson about the phrase “ugly duckling”.

I can’t find that expression anywhere with Google and, although it may be an unintentional misspelling, I like “notty” for the double meaning of “not” and “naughty”.

For another member, “ugly duckling” is about more than looks.

Maybe she can meet up with this dejected countryman of hers, who doesn’t include a photo clear enough to determine if his sulking is justified.

As interesting as all that is, we’ll wrap things up with another common mistake on the site. A lot of times people mistake one of the English lessons for a member profile and comment on it like this:

So that wouldn’t be so strange…if it weren’t on our lesson about Alvin and the Chipmunks!

Until next time, stay beautiful like an animated rodent.

Every month or so, the cast gets together to make lesson videos. We call this a cast session.

We had a session a couple of nights ago at a mellow and supposedly haunted pizza joint near the office. Amanda knows one of the owners and emailed to ask if we could film there. He didn’t reply, but we figured it would be cool.

But after about one video we got kicked out. I guess video cameras anger the ghosts. As we walked down the street looking for a new location, I suggested we stop outside another mellow local business so we could recreate a scene that happened in real life.

I commonly flip coins and roll dice to make decisions. Ever since Devan saw No Country for Old Men, this freaks her out, because apparently the killer in the movie does something similar (I am the only person in America who hasn’t seen it yet). We recorded a lesson on the movie a few months ago, but one of the microphones was accidentally off, so I figured we’d do it again.

We started setting up to film a quick video at an outdoor table. Now, this bar happens to be frequented by bike messengers. And bike messengers are usually good folk. I interviewed one the other day. Anyway, a stocky messenger came out of the bar and started looking at us a little funny. Mason asked him if we were blocking access to his bike. He said no and continued to stare.

“It’s not a joke, you know, this is what we do,” he said out of nowhere.

“Oh we’re just making videos that help people learn English. Nothing to do with bike messengers,” I said.

“This is bike messenger territory.”

I laughed.

“Oh you think that’s funny?”

I laughed some more. I mean, I expected him to say he was joking at any minute.
“Just keep laughing!” He yelled.

“I just don’t understand what we’re arguing about,” I laughed. ‘Cause, really, I didn’t, and it was quite silly.

“Why don’t you just go back where you came from?”

Now, noticing a Canadian flag patch on his jacket, and perhaps a hint of a Canadian accent, I dropped the wise-guy line, “OK, we’ll go back to Canada.”

“Say that again.” Dead serious.

“Um, we’re from Canada?” Then he mumbled some expletives and went back inside. We shot the scene, but I was in such a hurry to get out of there that I forgot to hit stop on the recorder at the end before I turned it off, which causes the audio to get erased. Mason’s going to check if the audio from the camera might be good enough, but my guess is that we’re going to have record a third lesson on No Country for Old Men. Oh well, that one was probably a little rushed for ESL students anyway.

Mason said if I had gotten in a fight he would have filmed it. I told him that was the right thing to do.

Online romance is always a popular topic on English, baby!, so when the latest episode of the soap found Marni with a new online boyfriend, a lot of people chimed in to share their computer-enabled love stories. But in one case, it doesn’t sound like it went very well.

Another member had an almost nursery rhyme tale of failed love.

Of course, everything in romance, from spying to searching for your mate on an ESL website usually works better if you have a sense of subtlety. I’d be surprised if this direct approach drew many responses.

And don’t forget to pay attention to detail. A spammer stopped by the site this week but forgot to fill in the blank her spammy comment.

That’s the kind of mistake that can cost you a job or a date. Of course, it’s no better to make promises you can’t possibly keep. Check out this boast from our lesson on fear of heights.

If you find a “7000 flour” building, I will challenge you to climb it with me, buddy. I wouldn’t start your search in this member’s town though:

But hey, at least she got on the tallest building.

Since Ebaby! TV was officially launched today, I figured it was time to share the story of the genesis of the Ebaby! soap opera.

First of all, in case you didn’t know, all the dialogues in the Ebaby! lessons are improvised since the whole point of them is to teach people real, conversational English. We just start with a topic and see where it goes, and then I take the recordings back to the office and make lessons out of them.

While most of us are pretty straight forward in the scenes, Amanda is the only member of the Ebaby! cast who is an actress by trade, and she likes to throw us curve balls for fun. Most of them don’t make it in the lessons because they tend to be a little risque. Her goal is to make the other person in the scene laugh.

Amanda’s main target for these shenanigans has always been Mason. She would just throw in some comment that would imply they have a child or are married or are dating or were dating but now she’s mad at him. Marni started trying to keep track of it, as though it were a plot line, “But, wait, last month you were just dating and now you have a child? What’s going on?” Which gave me an idea.

I had also noticed that the cast, particularly Mason, had some fans among the members. There are occasional broken English comments of the oh-you’re-so-cute nature. So I figured, what better way to tantalize these members who had developed a crush on Mason from watching him talk about movies and music than to actually depict him in a relationship?

All I needed was a plot. Luckily, around this time I went on a couple of dates with a girl I really liked. I met her through a friend and asked him if he thought it would be a good idea to try to date her. He said go for it; he’d date her himself if they weren’t so close. Then one day, whoops, they started dating. Sound familiar?

The cast didn’t know that I was basing the soap opera off my life until a couple of months ago when we filmed this scene in which Mason apologizes to me for giving me the go ahead to date Amanda and then making a move on her himself.

Now, even the soap opera episodes are improvised, so no one really knows what’s going to happen exactly until the scene is over. The direction for this scene was just, “OK, Mason, you sit down with me and apologize for pulling a 180 and I forgive you. Ready? Action.”

So when the scene was over, Amanda asked if I would really be that forgiving if I were in that situation. So I told her that I actually had in been in that situation and I was.

I mean, if there’s anything I’ve learned in this life, it’s that there’s no point in wishing for things that are impossible or trying to get people to do something they don’t want to do. What, was I going to steal my Amanda back from my Mason? Forget it. Couldn’t be done. So my options were, be angry at a friend who meant me no harm, or not be angry with him. Life’s too short to waste it being angry at your friends, so the choice was obvious.

The 19th episode of the soap goes on the site today, and it’s actually the first one that isn’t loosely based on my life. My Mason and Amanda actually aren’t seeing each other anymore, and if I wanted to keep basing the soap on their lives, I’d need another male cast member. But that’s another story.

So last week on the soap opera, Mason and Amanda finally got together. We spent three months dragging out the idea that she liked him and he wouldn’t notice her. But apparently that just wasn’t long enough for one incredibly patient Chinese member.

Of course there were many comments saying “Oh! How romantic!” and stuff like that. But you know what? I have to agree with this wise opinion instead.

May I only pray that all the real life Amanda’s of my life and men like me find this blog. But if they don’t, a couple of comments on a lesson about spooning reminds us that we always have one special lady in our lives…

Well, I’m not quite there yet. Apparently I have a couple of other options from fans I won with the wedding video.

That last one is particularly encouraging since I just found out that I am, in fact, going to China. More details about that later. But I’m already planning how I’ll impress the ladies there. I’ll amaze them with my powers to make the mundane interesting. A couple of minds seem completely blown by my lesson on losing your phone.

Well, that about wraps it up for this edition of best comments, so I leave you with the will-you-be-my-friend comment of the week. This one is sort of an Ebaby! inside joke which will be especially funny to regular users.

If you don’t fill out your profile, your name is a black non-link on the site. A lot of these non-links don’t realize they are non-links who can’t be messaged and go around asking for people add them. This one apparently missed an opportunity by just a few minutes…

Like two trains passing in the night…

Lots of love on the site this week. And I don’t mean just the romantic kind. Love for us too! In addition to all the great stories on this forum thread about how people learn English and make friends here, people have been singing our praises in the comments. A Brazilian woman said we help her learn outside of her English class.And a similar sentiment from a Pakistani member. I suppose we are doing something right. I mean, we apparently reach a demographic in Korea that has never heard of MySpace. I also discovered Chinese girl who had never heard the English name for the Spice Girls until our English lesson on their reunion. And there was some major wisdom shared about love in our English lesson on love after divorce. This comment from a Filipino member is English words to live by. But it wasn’t all love this week here in the land of ESL and social networking. At least not for me anyway. One Chinese member thinks it’s completely obvious that Mason is more attractive than I am, and that’s why he’ll prevail in our little love triangle.And amidst the hundreds of positive responses to our Turkrainian Wedding Preview, I found one nonbeliever. And one master of self-love.And what would a best English comments post be on Ebaby! without a note from someone looking for love, looking for friends and English chat? There’s no doubt that one new Chinese member loves English.

Despite the release of our very romantic preview of “Ebaby!’s Turkrainian Wedding,” commenters chose topractice their English with death threats this week.One member from Denmark immediately thinks of dying for someone at the mention of marriage. This reads like a slightly morbid wedding vow. We also have a young Russian woman who is deadly serious about finding friends and penpals on the Internet. Finally, a member from Mauritania seems pretty convinced that our English lesson on being a good Samaritan actually killed someone. It really is a tough world in ESL and online English education this week. A woman from Slovenia took ourEnglish lesson on James Bond as a chance to explain that she will not tolerate a wimp. The Eagles seem to have had a painful effect on this Chinese woman’s hands.“Finger-popping”…That sounds painful! Finally, this week’s English slang lesson drew concerns of an alien invasion from a Sri Lankan member. If all that wasn’t enough, someone showed up on the good Samaritan lesson just to tell me how I feel.Geez. So my pet frog died this week. DID YOU HAVE TO RUB IT IN??? But it’s not all darkness here in the land English chat and English forums. Those seeking friends are always in abundance here on Ebaby!, like this person who mistook an English lesson for a potential friend. And of course, cultural exchange is in no short supply. We learned of the Indian version of the good Samaritan……as well as the Chinese. And one Bulgarian got her fair share of “lolz” at my conversation with Mason.And, finally, in addition to a place to practice English, learn English free, and make friends all over the world, apparently Ebaby! is a place to develop self-love.

My headline on Ebaby! mentions that I’ll be touring the world with my band someday. The headlines on English, baby! seem to be more visible than on a lot of other social networking sites, so I get a lot of messages from people looking to find friends who want to chat about music. People often message to ask, “Will you come to Thailand?” or “Do you stop in Slovakia?” I always just tell them, “Sure. What town do you live in? Do American bands play there?” I figure it can’t hurt to network a little. Sometimes I give them my email when they ask for it.

This is often the first thing I do when I get to the office and I’m often a little hung over when I show up. One day, after what I can only imagine was a really rough night, I must have given a member from Ghana my phone number. I see people give out their phone numbers all the time on Ebaby! but it seems hard to me to talk to a stranger on the phone…that’s what the Internet is for.

Anyway, a few days later my phone rang with a call from a phone number with like 14 digits. I did’t answer it and I got a message.

“Hello, Jason. This is Isaak from Ghana. Isaak from Ghana. Your friend. This is Isaak from Ghana. You call me.”

I had to play it a few times to make sure I was hearing right. Throughout the day Isaak kept calling me. I asked around the office what people thought he might want. We guessed that he probably just wanted to practice English with a native speaker and we wonderedhow hard it is to call the US from Ghana. I mean, he could have Skype on his computer at home, or he could have to climb a mountain, pay 10 dollars, wait in line for an hour and call from rotary phone.

Isaak called me so often that it kind of freaked me out and I never answered the phone. He called at all hours, many times a day. Then one night I was in Seattle and a little drunk when Isaak called me at about 3 am. I decided to answer.

Jason: Hello?

Isaak: Hello! You never answer your phone!

Jason: I know…I travel a lot. [Which is true!] What’s on your mind?

Isaak: What?

Jason: What’s on your mind when you call?

Isaak: What?

Jason: You call very often. What do you call to say?

Isaak: I call to say don’t worry about your trip! Everything will be OK! Don’t worry!

Jason: Oh, OK, I won’t worry. I wasn’t worried.

Isaak: When do you come?

Jason: Well, like I told you in the emails, it’ll be a while, probably 2009 or later. [Can’t I dream?]

Isaak: OK. Well don’t worry. I take care of everything.

Jason: OK. Thanks Isaak.

I guess it just turns out that he’s excited for me to come visit him. He says that a metal band has never played in his village. It’s my dream to be the first one.

A few days later I got an email from Isaak that said“Hello Dear: Missing you more than ever.” I got a good laugh out of that. He must have heard someone say that somewhere, like in a movie, and not quite understood what it meant. It’s always nice to be called “dear” though, I guess. Even by Ghanaian dudes you’ve never met.