I read about this here (on CNET's News.com).
I dialed the number on my cell phone, and I asked "What is the capital of Texas?" I got a couple of text messages, telling me "Thanks for using Cha Cha!" or something like that, and then I got the answer, "Austin". I thought it was pretty cool so I wanted to share it. It kind of reminds me of Google's 1-800-GOOG-411 service, which allows you to get free addresses/phone numbers of businesses just by talking.
The name of this site/service reminds me of a song from the movie, "Go", called "Cha Cha Cha ("Go" Remix") by Jimmy Luxury & The Tommy Rome Orchestra. Maybe ChaCha.com should use this song as its theme.
Jimmy Luxury & The Tommy Rome Orchestra - Cha Cha Cha ("Go" Remix)
The soundtrack to "Go" has some really good songs. Here are a few of my favorites ...
No Doubt - New
Esthero vs. Danny Saber - Song For Holly
Natalie Imbruglia - Troubled By The Way We Came Together
Lionrock - Fire Up The Shoesaw (LP Version)
Sarah Polley was the best thing about the movie, "Go", and I really liked her in "The Sweet Hereafter", especially when she gets her revenge at the end of the movie.
I listened to one of my favorite Tori Amos albums today ... To Venus and Back. I love the song, "Suede", on the album. It has the line "tide is on your side", but I always sing "Titus on your side" and think of this obscure movie with Jessica Lange.
Tori Amos - Suede
Finally, here is the trailer for a cool movie I watched with Netflix's "Watch Instantly" feature. It is called "Ils" or "Them". The main language spoken in the movie is French, but the film is shot in Bucharest, Romania. It's pretty creepy, but it doesn't have the best ending.
I was on a message board where someone was saying how awful "King of the Hill" is. I have to disagree. I think the show has some very subtle and intelligent humor sometimes. I am not a fan of all of the episodes, but there are many good ones ... especially the ones where Peggy Hill attempts to speak Spanish. Anyway, here is a funny scene that shows how oblivious Luanne could be ...
Luanne Platter sings "Manger Babies"
This scene is from season 2, episode 11 (I think that is right).
My co-worker (who happens to be from Hyderabad in India) and I were talking about Bollywood movies, and I told her that I had seen part of one on YouTube before that was very high energy. It took me a long time to track it down, and I can't remember how I found it in the first place (update: I probably read about it on this blog, "Rough In Here, Rougher Out There"), but it's really fun to watch. The song is really good, too. I love it when the guy sings "Monica, oh my darling-ling-ling" or something like that. I sang it for my co-worker, and she instantly knew what I was talking about.
Here is the video ...
"Piya Tu Ab To Aaja"
I drove through New Mexico on I-10 when I was 17. It was late at night, and I was somewhere in the center of New Mexico, I think, because I had gone through Las Cruces hours ago, and I was on my way to Arizona. Anyway, I was in the middle of nowhere, and the radio station totally died. I couldn't find any radio station that had a strong signal. However, sometimes the signal would suddenly come back, and I would get some really cool songs. One song was "Turn To Stone" by Electric Light Orchestra, and another song was The 5th Dimension's "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In", which is based on music from "Hair". I haven't seen the play or the Milos Forman-directed film version of "Hair", but the music seems really cool. I love the part of the song where the trumpets (or whatever brass instrument that is) come in and the guy starts free-stylin' while the background singers sing "let the sunshine in". There are various forms of this song, and here are a few ...
The 5th Dimension - Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In (from Hair)
Here is a jazzy instrumental version by Henry Jerome ...
Here is a remix of the song by Jonathan Peters ...
Here is the scene from the beginning of the film version of "Hair" where they sing the "Aquarius" part of the song ...
Here is the part of "Hair" where they sing "Let The Sunshine In" ...
Here is the video of The 5th Dimension singing the song ...
The images of the sun came from this webpage at space.com.
I just discovered PicLens about 5 minutes ago. Install it for your Firefox browswer and look at photos/images in a very cool way. Here is the link ...
https://preview.addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579
It's kind of like looking at photos as if they are paintings hanging on a long wall in a museum. Very cool!
Here is the link to the MCOG box set on HMV.
I used to watch the cartoon series, "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" (a French/Japanese co-production that was later dubbed in English, too) on Nickelodeon in the 80s. It would come on really early in the morning, along with Danger Mouse and Pinwheel. I would also watch Today's Special sometimes, but it was kind of lame.
Anyway, "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" had the best theme song, and it made me want to get lost in some sort of adventure (I think it's part of the reason I wanted to learn so much Spanish ... ha!) as a child. There was something really strange about three kids wandering around on their own in Latin America ... even if they did have a giant golden condor to fly them around. I always have wondered if Esteban found his father.
I actually have every single episode on my computer, but the quality is not that great. I am probably going to end up ordering this box set just to tie up some loose ends from my childhood.
Nickelodeon would show some of the weirdest shows, and I think my subconscious is full of all of these strange memories that are really fragments of weird Canadian/British stuff shown on Nickelodeon. I know there was a show where some kids get kidnapped by aliens that have taken over their town, but I probably will never find that show. It was pretty creepy, though. I think there was a short film about a girl who thinks she is living with witches, too. Again, that's a film I will probably never see again.
It makes me think of that movie Ricky Schroder was in as a kid, where his parents are inside an RV that falls off of the sound of a mountain, killing them both. Ricky's character then has to trek through a wilderness all by himself. It was horrific to watch that as a kid and wonder what that feeling of abandonment would feel like.
OK, that's off the subject, though. Back to the main topic of MCOG ... I wonder if Amazon will eventually sell this box set. I would much rather buy it from them. I may not be able to wait, though.
And to be completely random, here is a live performance of "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock ...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/21/obama.richardson/index.html
Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, endorsed Barack Obama today. I think the endorsement is a big deal because a lot of people like Gov. Richardson and will respect what he has to say. I think John Edwards should endorse Obama, too. I don't know when that will happen, though.
Also, I found this video on YouTube, where the young girl from Hillary's 3 am phone call ad says that she is for Obama, not Hillary.
I am posting this link again in case anyone wants to donate to Obama's campaign ...
http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/markinaustin
Also, here is my goofy YouTube video (again) of Barack Obama images set to the Deee-Lite song, "Vote Baby Vote". It's rather amateurish, but I love it when it gets views. ;)
I work at a credit union, and I have members asking me how much we will loan them if they use their car for collateral (since you get a lower rate doing that than you would getting an unsecured loan). I always tell them that they can go on NADA.com to see how much their car is worth. I am always surprised more people don't know about this.
Here is the link to see how much a used car is worth ...
http://www.nadaguides.com/usedcars.aspx?LI=1-21-0-5002-844-923-59881&l=1&w=21&p=1&f=5004
Our credit union will usually lend you the "Clean Retail Value" of your car as long as your credit is decent.
Your loan balance should always be less than what your car is worth. You never want to be "upside down" (owing more on your car than what it is worth). There are plenty of people who are, though. They usually got their car financed somewhere like Drive Time where they will give you a rate of 18% or more, which is insane. Any rate higher than 10% right now is too high, and you should be getting a rate somewhere between 0% and 5% if you have good credit.
Also, dealerships will use books like "Kelly Blue Book" to tell you what your car is worth. I would always ignore what the dealerships tell you. NADA is a much better guide, and an individual or dealership should give you close to the clean retail value of your car when you are selling or trading it in to them. If they won't give you something close to that value, you can tell them you are going to walk away from the deal.
Another good site for pricing out cars is Showroom.carbook.com, which will show you what a new car should cost. The dealership gets a car at the invoice price, and they try to sell it to you at the MSRP price. However, the salesman should be able to offer you a price that is between the invoice price and the MSRP price if he really wants to make the sell.
A lot of dealerships will try to offer you GAP insurance. This is insurance that will help you pay off your loan if your car is totaled or stolen and not recovered for two months (or some time period like that). However, dealerships usually charge too much for GAP insurance (and extended warranties). You can check with your credit union or your auto-insurance provider to see if they can offer you GAP insurance at a lower price. My credit union offers it at a one time fee of $175.00, which is pretty cheap compared to what dealerships will charge for it. Also, you can sometimes get a discount on your loan rate if you purchase GAP insurance.
However, if your loan amount is a lot less than what your car is worth, you should not need GAP insurance. Your insurance company will probably give you enough money to pay off your car loan if you car is totaled, as long as your loan balance is below the value of your car. OK, that sentence was awkward.
OK, that's my car loan tips of the day. ;)
We have Muzak at work (the instrumental music that beams into our branch through a satellite connection or something like that), except we started having words a matter of months ago so now we can hear the songs in all of their glory. Anyway, there is a song that plays at least once a day, and I call it the "ghost trapped in a box" song. It is not the best song, but it has made its way deeply into my head so I am blogging about it today.
We could never hear enough lyrics or remember enough lyrics to do a Google search on it, in order to find out the name of the song and the artist who sang it. However, I heard the lyrics "again and again ... do it again" today, and a search later led me to the correct song ...
The Bird and the Bee - Again and Again
There is a remix by Peaches of their song "Fucking Boyfriend". It sounds pretty cool ...
The Bird and the Bee - Fucking Boyfriend (Peaches Remix)
A remix of M.I.A.'s "20 Dollar" was posted on the M.I.A. Fans message board today. It sounds kinf of amateurish, but it is not awful. I wish more people would remix that song. It is my favorite song on Kala.
M.I.A. - 20 Dollar (Ignacious' Mindless Warp Mix)
Daft Punk - Da Funk
Santogold (aka Santi White) is a really cool group that has ties to Spank Rock, M.I.A., Switch, and lots of other cool artists/DJs, etc. I do not believe they have an official album you can buy so I can going to do some music spreading here.
Anyway, they put out a video for their song, L.E.S. Artistes ...
I don't know what message the video is trying to convey (probably something about expressing yourself even if it gets you in trouble), but it's very colorful.
My favorite pop culture moment of Santogold is when one of my favorite songs of theirs, "Creator", was used in the beginning of the second part of a two-part episode of "Grey's Anatomy". It's the scene where Sandra Oh and Ellen Pompeo are dancing around in the bedroom to some music. I knew about Santogold long before this episode aired so it was cool to see that the music director of Grey's Anatomy had good taste. I think the show, "Entourage", has played Santogold, and M.I.A. has also been featured in episodes of that show so that is tres cool.
Here is a clip of "Creator" playing in the background of Grey's Anatomy (season 4, episode 10, part 2 of "Crash Into Me") ...
Here it is again just in case the above one gets deleted ...
and here is the song in its entirety (I have actually uploaded this song before) ...
Santogold - Creator
Here are some remixes of M.I.A. songs that I recently added to my iTunes library ...
M.I.A. vs. Beatie Boys and Nas ... Funny Bizniz (M.I.A.'s song in this mash-up is "Paper Planes") ... this song was made by Abrahammer, I think.
I got the above remix from the M.I.A. Fans Message Board (where I get almost all of my M.I.A. remixes nowadays).
M.I.A. vs. Dan Deacon - "Jimmy ... Jimmy Joe Rochoe" ( a remix by DJ STV SLV that came from The Hood Internet)
Actually, I think a lot of these remixes came from The Hood Internet.
M.I.A. vs. New Order - Blue M.I.A. Day (remixed by ABX)
I think the background sound of M.I.A.'s "20 Dollar" (which this is a remix of) is actually a distorted sample taken from New Order's "Blue Monday" (which this is also a remix of).
M.I.A. - Paper Planes (Holy Fuck Remix)
Buraka Son Sistema featuring M.I.A. - Sound of Kuduro
M.I.A. doesn't have too many lines in the song above, but the ones she has are cool. Here is more information on Buraka Son Sistema (who did the fast remix of Bird Flu, I think, and works a lot with Diplo and the Mad Decent blog).
Here is the video that goes with this song ...
This "Sound of Kuduro" song makes me think of a lot of the Baile Funk sound on "Piracy Funds Terrorism, volume one" bootleg album that Diplo and M.I.A. worked on.
I love how all of these artists kind of know each other and work together, or they work with friends of friends. It all seems very casual, but they manage to put out really cool stuff together.
I saw Simian Mobile Disco at Waterloo Park in Austin last night. They performed on a tiny stage, but they had a really cool light show and the crowd seemed to really like them. I went to see them because I have a friend who loves them and their songs, "Hustler" and "I Believe". I don't know too much about them, but they played one song with the lyrics "Fantastic into romantic, romantic into fantastic" (which I thought was saying, "fantastic is the romantic, romantic is the fantastic"). I discovered by using the power of the internet that the song is a remix of The Go! Team's "Ladyflash" by Simian Mobile Disco. Here is the song ...
The Go! Team - Ladyflash (Simian Mobile Disco Remix)