20 posts tagged “austin”
A friend of mine and I went out last night for dinner for my birthday and for election night. We were excited that Barack Obama would actually win the presidency. I was still very cautious. I am glad he won. I am glad the Democrats have the majority in the House and Senate. However, they may not get their 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, but they still did well. I am glad a lot of red states went to Obama.
Austin, TX and Travis County always go to Democrats, and it definitely went easily to Obama this time around. However, it kills me that Texas, as a state, has to be so backwards and go for McCain. If you look at an electoral map, you will see that the large urban areas (where most of the people live) all went to Obama.
Prop 8, which bans homosexual marriages, will probably get passed in California if the current results are correct. That is disappointing, but I guess that will just take time for people to get over their hangups about same-sex couples. I still believe that time heals all wounds, but that's not true if you run out of time.
The positive perspectives from around the world about Obama as the new president are very nice. I like the idea that the rest of the world may like America again. I always think globally. If I had enough money, I would live in a different country every month.
In other news, there is a lot of good music out there right now. Here is a mixtape that became available on the M.I.A. Fans message board today (http://miafans.co.uk) ...
http://fairtilizer.com/radioclit/the_very_best.zip
The music definitely has a "world music" sound to it. Esau Mwamwaya is featured heavily on the mixtape. He has done his own versions of "Paper Planes" and "Get It Up". I have posted his songs on here before. M.I.A. also put some vocals on a demo of his song, "Rain Dance". I think I have all of that right. The mixtape is also available on MySpace here ...
I think Radioclit is the main force behind the mixtape.
M.I.A. has a new song (download it) and video with Blaqstarr that is very good. It is called S.U.S. (Way Down The Hole) ...
As you can see the song has appeared under many different names. "Save Ur Soul" is probably the correct name.
One of the clubs/bars my friend and I went to last night was RAIN on 4th, and I was very happy that they played the song and video of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes". Everyone seemed to really like the song, and they all seemed to know the lyrics to it already, which they should since it has been out forever now. I just wish they would play songs like "Bamboo Banga". That would be more fun for a club.
The restaurant we went to was a great Italian restaurant called Primizie Osteria. It is located on East 11th St. in Austin, and it is probably one of those restaurants that is not getting as much business as it should because people do not know about it. I am probably going to do a Yelp review for it, but it already has a ton of positive Yelp reviews. Here is the website for it ...
http://www.primizieaustin.com
I got this Rigatoni with Italian Sausage dish that was really good, but I think the best part of the meal was the torta di limon dessert ...
My favorite mixtape to listen to right now is "Top Ranking" from Diplo and Santogold. I have posted some of the songs from the mixtape here already. You can download the entire mixtape by doing a Google search for it. Here are two of my favorite songs from the mixtape ...
KVUE news in Austin has a link on their site that tells you where to find the cheapest gasoline in Austin. It's a pretty hanyd tool. I go to the same gas station near my home no matter what so it doesn't really affect me, but it's a good site for people who really do shop around for the lowest gas price. The site that tells you where to go is called gasbuddy.com. I like to look at it just to see the current and past trends in gas prices.
My parents and I went to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens this past Friday (October 10, 2008), and they were really cool. They are much larger than the Zilker Botanical Gardens in Austin. We almost went to the Japanese Tea Gardens, which are also known as the Japanese Sunken Gardens (I think a scene from the 1984 movie, "Cloak and Dagger" was filmed there), but we didn't have that much time, and I thought the Botanical Gardens would offer more.
My expectations at the Botanical Gardens were far exceeded. My parents got a new Canon camera that is like my Canon SD750 camera, but theirs is a newer version.
Here are some of the photos we took ...
Here are a bunch of photos I took yesterday with my friend, Travis, as we walked around downtown Austin. I thought the pictures came out a little better than usual, and I think it is because it was so bright outside. As pale as I am, I can't believe I did not get sunburn or sunburned or sunburnt (however you are supposed to say it ... probably the first one).
OK, here are the dazzling photos (well, a couple of them) ...
It is way too hot in Austin so I thought I would post some songs that either mention "rain" in their lyrics or sound like water/rain. I may have posted some of these before. Here is the current forecast for Austin, TX ...
Here is a song that I could play over and over again if I had to. It has a sort of submarine sound to it ...
This next song actually mentions "rain" ...
"It's raining all over the world" (yeah, right) ...
This song has always sounded kind of underwater to me ...
This last song takes place when a storm is coming in Bram Stoker's Dracula ...
Also, here is a video from last summer in Austin, when it rained so much that they had to open up the floodgates at Mansfield Dam.
Austin is way too hot right now. I went out Saturday, and even at night it was too hot. Instead of getting alcohol to drink at a bar, I was drinking bottled water. I hate the cold, but this heat is becoming very irritating. Last year, Austin had tons and tons and tons of rain. I think all kinds of records were broken, and the heat was never this bad. Anyway, I thought I would post this Olivia Newton-John song to describe what I wish the weather in Austin would do ...
The above photo is from Only Olivia.
I was listening to Madonna's album, Hard Candy (I know, I need to move to another album ... I promise I listen to a million other things at the same time), and I noticed how the song, "Incredible", has the line, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone", which has been a famous line in music history.
I think the line originated in Joni Mitchell's song, "Big Yellow Taxi" ...
Then, the line was used as the title of Janet Jackson's song, "Got 'Til It's Gone", and Joni's song was sampled, too ...
Here is Madonna's song which puts the line in one of the verses ...
In other news, I watched the Woody Allen movie, "Scoop", on HBO today. It stars Scarlett Johansson (2 t's and 2 s's) and Hugh Jackman. It came out in 2006, and Woody Allen's other Scarlett Johansson London-based movie about murder, "Match Point", came out in 2005. The movies are not alike at all, though. Scoop is more of a comedy, and "Match Point" is pretty serious. They do both explore class in London, though. Here are the trailers ...
The last couple of Sundays I have gone to a club/bar in Austin called Elysium with some friends for their 80s music night. The music is usually very good, and the crowd is very eclectic. Here are my two favorite songs they play ...
Real Life - Send Me An Angel (this is the 1989 version, I think)
The original 1983 version of "Send Me An Angel" did not feature as much clapping in the background so it is less fun to dance to. Here is the video for the original version ...
The other song is also from 1983, and it is "Major Tom (Coming Home)" by Peter Schilling ...
Here is the video for the song ...
I watched something on TV about various beneficial effects trees have on a city, and it was really fascinating how much trees can do to help a city. Here are some of the things they do ...
http://www.americanforests.org/graytogreen/energy
I think the above link just talks mainly about how trees can lower a city's electric bill, but the special I watched on TV that time showed a lot of other ways trees can help and improve a city (well, they are nice to look at for one).
Anyway, I looked up tree-planting programs in Austin to see if there were any programs in place, and of course there are (Austin is pretty nature-friendly). One that caught my eye was Tree Folks.
Tree Folks helps plant trees in Austin and the surrounding area. They do other stuff besides that, but that was enough to make me want to donate some money to them. If you live in Austin, and you