What Are You Guys Doing In My Room?

You may wonder why there's been a blog drought in the past week. I've been spending my time filling out an absurd amount of paperwork for a scholarship application. An envelope is now in its away to point marked below. Really, I just wanted to use the embed feature for Google Maps.


View Larger Map

No Way!

So, I'm watching a live feed of Obama headquarters in South Carolina and some pep band is playing a band version of "The Final Countdown" and not just the keyboard riff, the whole song, verses and all. Some people are getting down too. One of the benefits of being popular with young people. Oh, Barack is coming on stage...

It's The Remix

The Arcade Fire just released a music video for "Black Mirror". They made a website for the video and you are given the option of turning on and off 6 different channels/tracks from the song. So, you can mute the drums, or vocals or strings, which really means you can kind of remix the song. I've had fun muting and bringing back the drums track, or soloing the vocal and drum track. Check it out.

Black Mirror

Gaza

Just an amazing picture.

President Putin of Germany?

Umm, I don't know if this has gotten out yet, but Horst Köhler is the president of Germany and Angela Merkel is the Chancellor/leader of Germany. Maybe you were in Russia, but still, that's pretty bad.

The Bird's Nest

There isn't much time until the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics begin. Obviously there have been all sorts of buildings popping up in Beijing to house the events. This one, called The Bird's Nest, is a really neat looking stadium. It's a great looking example of the trend of revealing a building structure.

Get Into the Groove

Ashlee Simpson has new single out, produced by Timbaland, that is not surprisingly really 80s. It's called "Out of My Head (Ay ya ya)". It kind of sounds like a toughed up Madonna, definite 80s shuffle beat. It's enjoyable.

My Friends?

Why is that John McCain says "My friends" so much? It makes him sound like a foreigner, like a Greek person with broken English. Maybe that's just his way to support immigration.

Awesome!

The Library of Congress has put over 3,000 photos on Flickr! This probably saves them tons of server costs and gives you and me thousands of amazing pictures. It's really a fantastic source, especially for presentations. It's worth just checking out just for cool pictures that depict all aspects of American history and beyond.

LOC on Flickr


All the riveting pictures weren't this cool.

Go Eat A Maple Croissant

It turns out those foreigners have found another way to cross our borders, with opinions about your politics. Win Butler of Arcade Fire, a fairly outspoken man, said this about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama:

I am watching Hillary Clinton in her victory speech in new Hampshire...they just threw a bunch of college kids behind her, and had her talk about student loans, and had her daughter come out for a long awkward hug...does anyone actually buy it? Surely young people are too media savvy to be fooled by this kind of shit.
do we live in a democracy so we can just keep electing the same families?
Barack is the first candidate in my lifetime to strip some of this bullshit away, and I just hope we don't blow this chance.
man if we miss this opportunity we don't deserve it...how bad does it have to get?

You know what Win, you're Canadian, French Canadian actually. How about putting your opinion back where it came from, the cold north.

Turns out he's from Texas. Well, that just ruins the joke. This is post 666, so it was destined to go wrong.

Oh, Voltaire!

Here's a hilarious gem from Voltaire, who has something of a mine full of literary and philosophical gems.

"If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor."

Nice Job America

My main source of political analysis "The Economist" has published this telling chart.

"A new study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looks at data from 19 countries for deaths of under 75-year-olds that should have been avoided with proper health care."

"...America, where health-care spending per head is highest, is at the bottom of the table."

I would imagine this is male specific due to the lower life expectancy of men. Or maybe the statistics for women weren't nearly as dramatic.

Kühl

So, on a whim I looked up Heidi Klum on Wikipedia, and found out that she hosts Germany's Next Top Model. Fortunately, there are a bunch of videos on the GNTP website. It is really strange to see and hear Heidi Klum speaking German. It's almost like she's a foreigner that speaks really baller German. There's also this tremendously fierce gay, black, German guy that is the runway coach, and he is a riot. A quick translation of a golden line "Even if the dress is terrible, you have to tell the public 'I am a diva'". He then proceeds to tear up the run-way. It's probably only hilarious because it's in German. Oh no, I'm being one of those people. I'm alienating my blogger crowd with my foreign language of choice.

Well, the new Radiohead album is really fantastic. On the 1 to 10 scale it's get a 9 in my book. Maybe we can all share that.

Call the Funk Police

On the 7th Stephen Colbert and John Stewart returned to the airwaves, sans writers, and some might imagine that they couldn't run a successful show without them. This clip of Stephen Colbert at the Smithsonian, will prove any nay sayer wrong.

Farewell, Sir Edmund Hillary

On January 11th in New Zealand, Sir Edmund Hillary gave up the ghost. On the 29th of May, 1958 Sir Hillary and Sherpa Mountaineer Tenzing Norgay were the first to ever climb to the summit of Mount Everest. Besides having completed that task, Sir Edmund Hillary spent his life helping the Sherpa people of Nepal. Along with the recent anniversary of the Wright Brothers flight, this reminds of the great accomplishments of humankind. It's nice to think great things are possible sometimes.


Tenzing Norgay at the Summit.

London Zoo, 1930

Too cute.

Keeping It Real: Part 2

iPhone commercials tout the ability to watch movies on your phone, but film director David Lynch isn't so hot on the idea as Apple is. I'm not so keen on flippant use of swear words, but David Lynch uses one such word to the T in this clip.

Keeping It Real

Now, I would really love to see a woman in the White House, due to an unarguable disparity in the treatment, status and view of women when compared to men. The graph at the bottom alone points out some serious issues on how Americans view people who hold the minority of power. Looking at the issues, Hillary Clinton and I wouldn't have too many disagreements and I do feel she has a refreshingly commanding presence. Regardless of that, I can't deny how inspiring Barack Obama can be and I gravitate more towards his ideas and his message. It's not as though a black president of any gender isn't a great triumph, it absolutely is. Beyond that, there is still a strong disparity between black people and whites. I just wish when a woman is paid less than a man, or a woman is admired more for her looks than her intellect, or a woman is seen as less capable than a man, that the reaction against that is as strong as any other reaction against discrimination and stereotypes. I would see President Hillary Clinton as a significant move in that direction, I just wish she got me as excited about change in America as Barack Obama and I think both Hillary and Barack would rather have me judge them on their qualities than their race or gender.

That Would Still Be One Pretty Sweet Party

I just saw this picture of Conan and David Letterman with beards and thought it was hilarious. Speaking of funny I just thought of the word Rocktopus, for example "Oh man, that guy totally broke out the Rocktopus with that solo."

Scotch Mist

Radiohead taped themselves playing several tracks from "In Rainbows", and for New Year's it aired on Current TV. Current TV is a network created by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, that has 30% of it's content made by viewers. It's pretty cool. To the point, Current TV posted that performance and you can watch it here. Oh yeah, it's called "Scotch Mist". Beyond that, it's really fantastic. The performances are great, and there are these great poetry readings spread throughout.