Mark’s blog

Piles of trash in Naples, Italy

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:55:36 -0500

This is a very old topic, but an American woman in Naples posted a new video on this subject in CNN's iReport section. She shows how she lives in a nice house and neighborhood, but she has to drive a very short distance to dump her trash. The trash just piles up. No truck ever comes to get it. The stench can be smelled throughout her town, and it attracts stray dogs.

Anyway, the video reminds me of some post-apocalypitc movie like 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead. It's very creepy, and I hope nothing like this ever happens in Austin (or anywhere else, for that matter).

Here is the video link, and here is the video ...

Taking out the trash in Naples, Italy (CNN iReport)

Here is a song by Garbage to go with this post ...

Subhuman

Garbage

Here is the song from the video ...

Closing Time

Semisonic

There is a good side to trash, though. There are several projects in the works and some that already exist that turn trash and waste into energy. Here is an article that talks about an example of this amazing technology ...

http://www.costaricapages.com/blog/costa-rica-news/trash-energy/1135

Therefore, trash and waste may be one day viewed as valuable forms of fuel and energy, thus eliminating the scary vision of the future where we are all buried in our own garbage.

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Prince trying to control a song that is not his ...

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:30:02 -0500

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/30/music.radiohead.prince.ap/index.html

The above article is about how Prince performed Radiohead's song, "Creep", at the Coachella music festival. Some fans put videos of the performance on YouTube. Prince's people complained and got the videos taken off of YouTube, but the song is not his. Radiohead has no problem with the song being on YouTube so there is no copyright violation going on. The article will explain it better than me, but it just goes to show how dumb artists look when they try to protect their music way too much. It makes me think of how annoying Metallica was when the band members were complaining about their music being on Napster back in the day.

Here is the song, Creep, by Radiohead. I was in love with the song when I first saw the video for it way back in the early 90s. I think I watched the video on MTV's great show, 120 Minutes. It would be nice if a show like that one was still around.

Radiohead - Creep

02 Creep

Radiohead

Here is the video ...

Radiohead - Creep

Here is a cover of Radiohead's "Karma Police" by Tori Amos (I may have posted this before) ...

Karma Police (Radiohead)

Tori Amos

Here is Radiohead's version ...

Radiohead - Karma Police

In other news, Madonna's "Give It 2 Me" video is out and about on the internet now. Here it is on YouTube, but don't be surprised if this video gets taken down since it has already has been taken down numerous times ...

Madonna - Give It 2 Me

The quality of that video is awful, but I am sure a high-quality version will be uploaded to YouTube sometime soon. I am not crazy about the video, but it's not that bad. People probably wonder why Pharrell Williams is all over the video, but the "Hard Candy" album is almost more his than Madonna's. I think he produced the majority of it, and his voice can be heard throughout the album (along with the voices of Justin Timberlake, Timabaland, and Kanye West).

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Caetano Veloso

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Sun, 11 May 2008 17:55:18 -0500

I talked to someone recently about Caetano Veloso, Brazilian music, Marisa Monte, and Spanish music (like Shakira, Juanes, and Julieta Venegas) so I thought I would post some Caetano Veloso songs from a CD of his that I have called Noites do Norte. I am sure there are better Veloso songs out there, but I don't know them all. If anyone wants to recommend a better song from his library, by all means go ahead in the comments section. Eu falo um pouco em portugues. ;)

Here are some from the Noites do Norte album ...

05 Rock'n'Raul

Caetano Veloso

06 Michelangelo Antonioni

Caetano Veloso

I love that the title of the above song is the name of a famous Italian director, whose movie, L'Avventura, I love.

Here is the first song on the CD ...

01 Zera A Reza

Caetano Veloso

Here is the second song from the album. I can't leave it out because it's very pretty. I used to play this song while driving back from lunch to my job, and I remember passing under the canopy of the trees while little bits of sunlight broke through the green leaves. It was a magical moment. Ha! I ususally don't talk like that. It's moments like those that make me want to travel more, but it's too damn expensive!

02 Noites Do Norte

Caetano Veloso

That's a very young Caetano above.

In other news it's inevitable (as Agent Smith said in numerous scenes of The Matrix Trilogy) that Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate in the general election. Here is some news about him tying for the number of superdelegates with Hillary Clinton.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/11/campaign.wrap/index.html

Feel free to donate to his campaign here. ;)

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Jorge Moreno, Lost Odyssey, and The Cranberries

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:20:38 -0600

Aqui esta musica latina para las orejas. Ha, I am not going to try to type en espanol. I will just butcher it. Anyway, here are three songs by Jorge Moreno from his self-titled album way back in 2001. I decided to take the CD with me on my way to work this morning. I am not very good at discovering music (although, there is a lot of new music I like), but I am great at drudging up music from the past. I bought this CD way back when I would go into music stores and listen to entire albums on the headphones provided to you at one of those listening stations. We used to have a Tower Records in Austin, where you could do just that. The only place you can do it now is probably Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Waterloo Records. However, Tower was definitely my favorite record store to go to.

It is funny how parts of a song can be so strong, but the rest of the song is kind of weak. For example, my favorite song from Jorge Moreno's album is "Si Yo Fuera" because it starts off like an old James Bond song (I am probably thinking of "Goldfinger" by Shirley Bassey), and it stays strong for a while, but then it gets repetitive. I still really like it, though.

Jorge Moreno - Si Yo Fuera

05 Si Yo Fuera

Jorge Moreno

The first song on the album, "Reloj", is pretty good, but I think my favorite part is the ending that provides the segue into "Despertare". I wish artists would realize that the subtle parts of their songs are sometimes the best part, and they should incorporate more of that element into their music.

Jorge Moreno - Reloj

01 Reloj

Jorge Moreno

Jorge Moreno - Despertare

02 Despertare

Jorge Moreno

I did a search for Jorge Moreno's music videos, and here is what I found ...

Jorge Moreno - Despertare

Jorge Moreno - Si Yo Fuera (set to soccer footage)

Jorge Moreno was on Madonna's record label, Maverick (home to Alanis Morissette and Goo Goo Dolls, among others), but I think he was later dropped. I couldn't find a good website for him (well, I found this one, but it needs more work). Musicians/artists/celebrities should always have their own independent websites so fans can link to it and stay updated.

In other news, "Lost Odyssey", the game I am completely addicted to right now, got a good review from CNN here. The game is everything I have been waiting for since it is like the Final Fantasy series and has wonderful graphics and music. It makes buying an XBOX 360 totally worth it.

I have been listening to The Cranberries' album, "Bury The Hatchet", a lot lately. I first heard the song, "Promises", while staying at a Hampton or La Quinta in Costa Rica (Santa Ana or San Jose, I can't remember which, but they are right next to each other). I had gone to Costa Rica to learn more Spanish, and I was supposed to be there for four weeks, but I only lasted one week since I got so homesick. I had never traveled to another country before, and I also never traveled by myself before so the experience was really new for me. I was also dating a really cool guy back in Austin so it was weird to just up and leave everything behind. Costa Rica was really cool, and I got to go horseback riding, which I love more than anything so I really regret that I left so quickly. The night I was staying in the hotel was my last night before I went back to Texas, and I just felt like a complete failure for leaving early. I also kind of knew that the relationship with the guy in Austin was not going to last for many reasons. The song, "Promises", came on the MTV channel that they show in Costa Rica. The song seemed to sum up everything I was feeling, and I can still listen to the song today and think of every regret I felt at that time. Ugh! Anyway, here is the song ...

The Cranberries - Promises

03 Promises

The Cranberries

Here are two of the other songs on the album that I like ...

The Cranberries - Animal Instinct

01 Animal Instinct

The Cranberries

The Cranberries - Shattered

06 Shattered

The Cranberries

I bought the mp3 album of Dolores O' Riordan's solo effort, "Are You Listening?" I haven't gotten a chance to really listen to it, yet, but what I've heard so far sounded pretty good and very Cranberries-ish. I will post some of the songs here if they are good. It came out in May of 2007.

My final piece of blogging is a question I have asked other places on the internet, but I never get an answer ... Who is this woman in the "Yes, we can" music video? ,,,

She kind of sings the "Ohhh" part of the song. You can watch the video here if you need to.

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Technology in rural areas

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:15:46 -0600

I love the idea of introducing to an area that has never seen it before (or owned it). Here is a good article from CNN about those cheap laptops being introduced to children in Peru.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/25/onelaptop.onevillage.ap/index.html

It's cool how easily the laptops can inspire the children to become artists, filmmakers, musicians, engineers (since they are required to know how to fix the laptops, too), accountants, etc. It also gives the children and their parents a way to communicate with the outside world since the laptops come with some sort of wireless internet connection, I think.

In a weird way it reminds me of the Mad Max franchise, the Myst games, and Stephen King's Dark Tower series. In those stories a character wonders into a remote, isolated world that nature has sort of taken over. However, he usually is able to find some sort of technology that tells him about the culture of that area, helps him to cultivate the land, and enables him to communicate with the outside world somehow. I love the idea of technology mixed with deserted areas or areas that have been ruined. It's a theme in most post-apocalyptic movies/games like the Resident Evil franchise.

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