Part Bpàirt

Bpàirt is eight in Thai.

1. If your people were to make a statue for you, what would it be made out of, and what victory would it celebrate?
Probably copper, because then it would oxidize and look quite old. It would have character. It would celebrate the legalization of gay marriage in America.

2. What is the most cathartic thing for you?
Most frequently, it's a very good film.

3. Are all things naturally in en equilibrium? Or will all things eventually reach an equilibrium?
All things have to be in balance somehow, so yes to the first.

4. Is faith, with the definition of believing in something with no evidence, admirable?
No.

5. Do you believe in ghosts?
Yes.

6. The greatest beauty is?
The greatest I know is youth.

7. Which is the more important; separations or connections?
Connections.

8. Do you feel like you should be a foreigner? If so, which country?
Hard to say, but I think French. They seem to be all about individualism.

9. If you were to have a talking animal sidekick, what kind of animal would it be?
A panda, wait on second thought, probably a Falcon.

10. How do you feel about getting older?
Not looking forward to it.

11. Would you rather have Santa or a goat deliver your Christmas presents?
As though Santa has anything on a gift delivering goat, come on.

12. How much does where you live affect you?
Quite a bit.

13. Metal?
I enjoy it at times.

14. Do we all have shared memories at birth(collective unconscious)?
I think so.

15. What is your favourite holiday?
Earth Day.

Thought

We are getting to know, more and more each day, about which parts of the brain correspond to different emotions. I wonder if, in the future, we'll have personal emotion gauges and you just show someone a little display -- "I didn't know this was so embarrassing to you, 17, wow." If that isn't in some Sci-fi novel, it should be.

Say It Loud!

At 1:45 am, December 25th, 2006 James Brown died.

His musical influence is hard to measure, and his cultural influence is much the same.

[BBC]

Part Sju

As I promised, part 7 of my ongoing Survey/Questionnaire feature is here. Sju is Swedish for 7.

1. If your people were to make a statue for you, what would it be made out of, and what victory would it celebrate?

2. What is the most cathartic thing for you?

3. Are all things naturally in en equilibrium? Or will all things eventually reach an equilibrium?

4. Is faith, with the definition of believing in something with no evidence, admirable?

5. Do you believe in ghosts?

6. The greatest beauty is?

7. Which is the more important; separations or connections?

8. Do you feel like you should be a foreigner? If so, which country?

9. If you were to have a talking animal sidekick, what kind of animal would it be?

10. How do you feel about getting older?

11. Would you rather have Santa or a goat deliver your Christmas presents?

12. How much does where you live affect you?

13. Metal?

14. Do we all have shared memories at birth(collective unconscious)?

15. What is your favourite holiday?

The Knife

You may have heard all the hoopla about The Knife: the Swedish synth pop duo has garnered an Arch's worth of praise. I decided to take the plunge and follow up on this hype, and I found this one track, an older track, that is blowing my mind.

Kino by The Knife is so amazingly 80's. It has this bangin' beat, an amazing lead melody that sounds very South East Asian, and the lead vocals sound like an even weirder Björk. I think you have to be an fan of early electronica to enjoy something like this, but if you are one of those people, this couldn't be more satisfying.

Kino

The song "Heartbeats", which was covered by Jose Gonzalez and put in a Sony Bravia commercial, is just a plain fantastic pop song. The Knife version is better, in my opinion. It's more pop.

Heartbeats

Harry Potter Book 7

...is called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I like it.

95 percent of Americans had premarital sex

Courtesy of Digg and then CNN, I found out about this newly released research.

"More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past."

"The study found women virtually as likely as men to engage in premarital sex, even those born decades ago. Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44."

""The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds," Finer said."

""It would be more effective," Finer said, "to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active -- which nearly everyone eventually will."

Now give out some more condoms The Man.

CNN

Awww

This new Mac/PC add is adorable.

Tall Soy Chai Latte

I was waiting for my sister's drink to come at a Starbucks, when the employee said to me "Stella was a diver?" After a little hesitation, I said "...and she was always down". I was wearing my Interpol T-shirt. Soon after this, my sister comments about a chalk board ad for a Soy Chai Latte. The employee asks me if I want it and starts making a Tall Soy Chai Latte, "Take it, it's almost done". So I left with a Tall Soy Chai Latte, for free, and a funny little story. It was delicious.

Holiday Wish List

May haps this holiday season someone will deliver me some festive gifts from this list. Any festive present delivering goats taking note?

-Lexus GS Hybrid
This car is classy on two fronts. The first, it's a Lexus, I mean look at it. Second it's a Hybrid; 25 City-28 Highway and Super Ultra Low Emissions. Yes it's an emissions rating, not just a bunch of adjectives.


- 13-inch Macbook: Black
I could do with a faster processor and a more robust graphics card, but practically this computer is more than enough. There's the conflict on my Windows MP3 player, but I'll just have to get geeky with Bootcamp.


-Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T10
Perhaps the arty side of me wants a fancy digital SLR with all kinds of crazy expensive lenses. The stylish side wants this though, and it supposedly has fantastic image quality, even if it does lack manual settings.


-Nintendo DS
As though an explanation is needed.



Musical Equipment:
-Aguilar DB 750
-A new chord. My current chord hardly works anymore.
-Gibson Hummingbird. Money not an object, or I'd never buy this, overpriced like whoa.
-Ukulele, Pipa, Shamisen, Koto, various keyboards, and maybe a melodica, cause it's cute.

Dragons

Continuing my series on celebrated animals, I'll go into differing culture views of dragons. I read this article about an initiative to stop using the dragon as a national symbol for China, the reason is hilariously explained by a writer at the BBC.

"Chinese dragons are supernatural symbols without the Western traits of aggression or maiden-eating."

I don't know about those Brits, but the Dragons of my childhood were either invisible or big hippies.



[BBC]

Enneagram System

So I was introduced to this personality type system called the Enneagram System. Now if you've been with the blog since the start, you probably read my post about the Myers-Briggs personality test I took: at the time I was pretty comfortable with the test, but after learning about this Enneagram thing, I am so confused. The results I got put me in tons of different categories, and now I'm questioning my Myers-Briggs results. I kind of have the belief that people possess all kinds of different things in their personalities and with different situations different parts of their personalities are dominant, so it's hard to fit into categories. I think ideally I need to see myself through other people to get a better sense of myself.

Anyways, look into this stuff if you're interested, nothing with wrong a better understanding of self, even if self doesn't really exist. Think about that one.

Allmusic's 25 Crushworthy Artists of 2006

In a welcomed contrast, the gang over at Allmusic have posted their "The 25 Most Crushworthy Bands of 2006" list. I can't say I've heard of most of these bands, but Allmusic usually steers me towards great artists, like Acid House Kings and The Orange Peels.

The Bicycles out of Toronto are quite precious. Their album is even called "The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly".

Speaking of other countries, White Shoes and The Couples Company, an indie-pop group from Jakarta, Indonesia - is currently rocking my speakers quite right. Thanks Allmusic!

Michigan natives Those Transatlantics are also on the list, and upon a listen, this is some great pop music.

Allmusic

Grammy Nominations Are Rubbish!

Honestly, who picks this? Effing James Blunt for best record of the year?! Have you heard his music?! Red Hot Chili Peppers for best album of the year?! As though they even tried with that record, it sounds like a continuum of what they've been doing for the past 6 years! What a bunch of effing yuppies! The Pussy Cats Dolls are on this list!? How does this happen?! I've never used to many exclamations marks in my life!!!!

Maybe the Cutest Music I've Ever Heard

So, I came across this duo called Lullatone. First, the terribly cute back story.

"Lullatone came together shortly after Shawn James Seymour moved from his hometown of Louisville, KY, to Nagoya, Japan, with his girlfriend and bandmate, Yoshimi Tomida. The two initially met in an intercultural communications class at the Bellarmine University. At one point during class, the teacher asked the exchange students what they had trouble adjusting to in America. Tomida replied that she was having trouble adjusting to American food, so after class Seymour offered to take her to a local Asian market. They ended up having a picnic, and Seymour moved to Nagoya with her about a year later, where they moved into a tiny apartment."

The song, "Bedroom Bossanova", sounds like a bedroom recording. A Ukulele, toy drum, glockenspiel, shaker, and that flute keyboard thing, which I keep forgetting the name of, are the instruments; While Yoshimi Tomida whispers out lyrics, which are probably super cute as well. Anyways check it out.

James Kim, Found Dead

You might have heard about this story on the news. I myself heard about the disappearance of the Kim family from Cnet, a technology news and review website that James Kim worked for. If you don't know, on vacation the family got stuck in the wilderness and weren't found for a week. Earlier in the week, Kati Kim, and her two daughters Penelope and Sabine were found alive. James Kim was not with them, he went out to search for help.

Today, James Kim was found dead. It's certainly odd to think that he won't be a part of Cnet any more, but the really terrible part is, that he died trying to save his family. I can't possibly imagine what his friends and family are going through. I hope they can find a way to comfort each other.

We'll Design a Clever Disguise

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have released full details about their second record titled "Some Loud Thunder", which in early live versions I've heard, is a fantastic track. The album will be out in CD form on January 30th, but to the tech savvy bunch the album can be had in digital form on January 16th. The great part is, after you download it, you'll be sent a copy of the CD once it's released.Win-Win?

The gang have also posted 2 tracks off of the sophomore record on their website. I'll only link to "Underwater (You and Me)" because the other track isn't very good, at least in my opinion. Granted, I only gave it a quick listen.

...(You and Me)

Goat guarded from festive vandals

This is just good times. This village in Sweden builds a giant straw goat every year as a tradition, but there are usually troubles.

"In the 40 years since the tradition started, the giant goat of Gavle has often gone up in flames within days."

"Just 10 of the goats, which are built in the town's central square, have survived beyond Christmas since 1966."

"But this year the 13-metre (43ft) high goat has a coat of flame-resistant chemicals, and the authorities are determined it will see in the New Year."

"Goats have a special place in Swedish tradition, and it was a goat which in earlier centuries delivered festive gifts before Santa Claus took over that role."

Oh, those goats.

[BBC]

Rice Field