I accidentally ate some moldy pie (apple, if you're curious) this morning -- yes, for breakfast --which puts me one step closer to actually being Homer Simpson.
Also, it gives me an excuse to post this classic clip:
This was the best resolution clip I found. It has the added features of being the German version and, for some reason, mirror-reversed. (German Homer is weird, right? Very pimply-faced kid-like. I tried to explain this when I lived in Germany, but they were just too used to it to hear it.)
Showing posts with label random videos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random videos. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Still Alive ... For Now
Friday, July 02, 2010
Random World Cup Thoughts
Anyone following the World Cup? I've been watching even though I can't ever remember the name of the one U.S. player I've heard of. Landon Donovan is such an odd name, so I get as far as "Lan" and then all I can think of is "-do Calrissian?"
I was fairly invested in the Germany-England match. Despite the WWII reference nonsense, I was rooting for Germany (it's the only team where I actually know the players' names). I was so tense when England had the non-goal goal (thinking that the tide was turning) that I couldn't watch until it was 3-1. I'm okay with Germany losing to Argentina or Spain if they get that far. But England seems to be all whining and self-absorption (this opinion is, of course, totally uninformed by anything) -- like the Yankees, but suckier at their given sport.
Aside from my Germany leanings, the most awesome final -- in a very Simpsons-tastic way -- would naturally be Paraguay v. Uruguay. Unfortunately the countries aren't right, but I couldn't resist including this clip:
Monday, May 31, 2010
Eurovision 2010
Germany won the Eurovision Song Contest this Saturday with this song, "Satellite" sung by 19-year old Lena. I didn't see it, of course, but it's notable for 2 reasons. One, it runs counter to the trend of domination by Eastern European countries. Although there have been recent wins by Finland and Norway, one might have thought that the old school Eurovision countries -- e.g., France, Germany -- might never win again. The second unusual thing is that the song is a genuine pop hit. Here's the song (not the live performance):
Monday, April 19, 2010
Ponyo
I got around to watching "Ponyo," the latest film from Hayao Miyazaki, last night. It's the most awesomely adorable thing ever. And having seen several Miyazaki films, that's saying a lot.
Here's the adorable end credit song (in Japanese).
I'm going to Taiwan and Tokyo for a a couple of weeks, starting this Thursday. I don't know if I'll be able to update from the road. If not, I'll see you guys when I'm back.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Eurovision 2009
The Eurovision Song Contest finals were last Saturday. Although I've blogged about Eurovision before, the dearth of bloggable material suggests to me that one more post can't hurt.
Everything I want to say has probably been said more succinctly here at the Onion AV club. While I only caught 1/3 of the acts, overall, my impression was that the contest wasn't as fun as in 2007 -- the last time I watched/blogged it. Possibly, the more outrageous (and, therefore, more entertaining) of acts get weeded out in the semi-finals. I, again, missed some of the first acts, but here are my thoughts with accompanying YouTube vidoes.
The winners:
1st place, Norway. The friend who watched the show with me was a fan and it was the winner by far, but I can't say I agree. As far as Eurovision goes, however, at least respectable.
2nd place, Iceland. I missed this song during the live broadcast. Listening now -- boring but not embarrassing. Could actually be something you'd hear on the radio. The dolphins are kind of stupid.
3rd place, Azerbaijian. Huh. While they were tallying up the results, I was thinking that Azerbaijian was a different song, so clearly it didn't make that big of an impression.
Others:
Albania. Seriously, dancing mimes? And I'm not even going to touch the issue of the green dancing guy. I have no words for the confusion this song causes me.
Sweden. I've never seen an act do the pop-song/opera thing successfully. This is no exception.
Greece. I like the way the platform rises at the end to reveal a Greek flag.
Bosnia & Herzegovina. The costumes, the costumes! Even though I linked it before, I must quote the AV Club: "Without Eurovision, you might never have known that the look in Bosnia right now is very touring-production-of-Les-Miz."
Malta. This was my friend's second-favorite. She has a nice voice.
Estonia. When I watched live, we missed her playing the violin she holds for the entire song. I counted, and she plays for exactly 10 seconds at 2:35.
Romania. I cannot understand what she's singing (it is in English, I think), but it nearly has a hook and in terms of disposable summer pop song with hot dancing girls, I don't see how this 19th place is worse than 4th place Turkey.
Turkey. 4th place.
UK. The UK got tired of their terrible showing (see their hilariously ridiculous 2007 entry!), so they got Andrew Lloyd Webber to compose a song for them. It did much better and it's terribly boring.
Finland. Finnish rapping (in English).
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
In Bruges
Sean and I were in Brussels for the weekend and took a day trip to Bruges. You know, this place:
(Other cool bits to watch are here and here.)
Bruges is in the Flemish part of Belgium and features a lot of medieval buildings. Sean and I were rather lackadaisical about the sightseeing, just walking around, going up to the top of the belfry and taking a boat tour through the canals.
The Belfry:
From the top of the belfry:
On the boat:
Basilica of the Holy Blood:
Monday, February 16, 2009
Turning German
The cord on my MacBook power adapter melted some time last night. After exhausting all the possibilities that didn't involve riding my bike in the rain to the German Apple Store equivalent, I did just that and got a new power adapter. So over two years after I moved to Germany and a mere 8 months before the end of my job contract, my MacBook now has European power plugs. I'm sure they are going to come in handy in the U.S. 
This, of course, was the (inappropriate and inaccurate) song I was humming on the way back to my apartment:
Not useful for my mix.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Make a Mix for Me
What I really need to power through the next month or next few months is the right playlist. I'm thinking indie-electropop-dance, if I actually knew what that meant. So I'm throwing down the gauntlet: make a mix for me. I'll even get it started:
Ladyhawke - Magic (not an official video, duh):
Matt & Kim - Daylight
[Updated Feb. 17, 2009] Wow, you guys really went to town with the suggestions and I just spent an absurd amount of time clicking around youtube. So I'm going to keep this post updated with songs that piqued my interest. And I'll throw a couple songs on at the end that people can voice their opinion on. With the abundance of cool (and totally new to me) songs, I'm thinking that I'm straying from my original concept, but I guess you got to go where the road takes you.
Songs based on suggestions:
Alphabeat - Boyfriend (slick cheesy 80s pop song, but too slick?)
Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes
Parts & Labor - Nowheres Nigh
[Updated Feb. 20, 2009] Okay, still processing all the suggestions, but I thought I'd throw up one more song. I also added some comments about songs already posted. Then, for kicks, Yaz: doesn't fit on my playlist, but I enjoy the nostalgia.
Bloc Party - Banquet
Catchy or annoying?
MGMT - Kids (current verdict: annoying, but insidious)
Yeasayer - 2080 (current verdict: not annoying, but not sufficiently danceable)
Yaz
Only You
Bad Connection (how could anyone resist this?)
Totally irrelevant to the task at hand, but as long as I'm embedding videos
Amanda Palmer - Oasis
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Arnel Pineda
So this story has gotten some mainstream press, but it's possible that some of you may not spend all your days reading the news on the internet. You can read the Time magazine article here.
Arnel Pineda is a 40-year singer from the Philippines (here's his wiki page). He's spent the past 25 years playing in various cover bands. Today, he's the lead singer of Journey. Yeah, there's a lot of youtube clips.
Last summer, after Journey had parted ways with their last lead singer, Journey guitarist, Neal Schon, spent some time trolling youtube. He found clips of Arnel Pineda singing the The Zoo, his most recent band, and couldn't believe what he heard. And it was as simple as that. God bless the internet.
Pineda doesn't just sound like Journey's original lead singer, Steve Perry, he sounds better. His ability to mimic some very distinctive voices is nearly uncanny. And though they played 3-5 hour shows (according to Wikipedia) to some half-empty clubs (as you can see) with crappy youtube video sound quality, Pineda's covers sound better than the original studio recordings with all their fancy equipment.
And his story is nearly unbelievable. His family hit hard times, so he struck out on his own when he was 13 years old and has been singing professionally since he was 15. Youtube has dozens and dozens of clips of him singing with The Zoo (this is just a random selection; some of the best weren't embed-able).
Covering Journey:
Red Hot Chilli Peppers:
Aerosmith:
Heart:
Boston:
Bon Jovi:
And here he is with Journey:
Sunday, September 23, 2007
4 Songs
On a weekend where both Eugene and Tim have posted about new music, I figured I'd better blog about music too. I don't have a TV, and I haven't been to any shows, but since I last reported on the state of my iPod (5 months ago), I've acquired 2.73 GB, 640 songs, and 36 albums. And, to the shame of having a John Mayer album, I can now add a Fall Out Boy album. My full music library no longer fits on my 4 year old iPod and I can listen to music on shuffle and think "what the hell is this?" or "I have this?"
Here are four songs that found their way onto my iPod in the last 5 months (and if any of you guys has some odd desire to actually listen to what I'm listening to, let me know):
1. Okkervil River - John Allyn Smith Sails
The only song that for which I haven't found an appropriate YouTube video, but you can listen to the entire album, The Stage Names, on their myspace page. I've already expressed my love for Okkervil River, but I just can't help myself. A lot more rock and with a more modern sound than their previous albums, but with somewhat of a draggy middle where things get a little too twee. "Unless It's Kicks" is probably the best song: a driving rock anthem to not letting being in a rock band wear you down. But it cannot beat "John Allyn Smith Sails" for pure awesomeness. The song starts acoustic, with a narrative about the poet John Berryman and his 1972 suicide, then segues into a cover of "Sloop John B." the traditional most known by its cover by the Beach Boys. "Sloop John B." people! Listen to it
2. Elliott Smith - Waltz #2
I found a live version of this song off the XO album somewhere and it's great: sad and sweet, melacholy and anger over the people we should know best but who are forever out of reach. Here's a similar live version:
Truthfully, I don't own a single Elliott Smith album; I'm fearful of spending the money and finding that his whisper-singing drives me nuts ("speak up! I can't hear you!"). And finding the original album version of the song does nothing to reassure me (it's audio only):
With the heavy drum line, it make me imagine that they're playing in some honky-tonk bar. And someone please explain the backing vocals to me. Why?!
3. The Smiths - Girlfriend in a Coma
I've been singing this 2 minute ditty for days now. I can't explain it, but I know it's brilliant (because "it's serious"?).
4. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
This song hasn't been released as a single yet, so I'm not sure if this is the actual music video for it (and the song seems to be a little faster than my album version) but whatever:
LCD Soundsystem has gotten a lot of press as sort of confessional indie music with an electronic dance music soul. The album, Sound of Silver, is pretty good, although I kind of think that "Someone Great" is the only can't miss track. But I can't help but wonder: who is supposed to listen to this music? What sort of giant electronica wave is LCD Soundsystem supposed to be on top of? Most people listen to electronica when they want to stop thinking and start dancing. Are people really going to start listen to it on the radio while their driving to work? Are they going to play this in Starbucks? What are we, French? (Yeah, I really don't know what makes me think that this is what the French do.)
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Rheinkultur
This is it. All four labels: one ultimate post. I must say, I'm quite proud of myself. And on the day after my birthday. (By the way, I've decided that if 27 is the year of 'perfection', the motto for 29 will be 'all business.' Watch out world.)
Yesterday, on my birthday, I went to the Rheinkultur music festival: one day, 5 stages, free entry. The plan was to meet some people at the Ollenhauerstr. stop of the S-bahn at 5:30pm, a few stops before Rheinaue, the festival location, and walk the rest of the way. It's a five minute ride from the Hauptbahnhof (the main train station) which is a few minute walk from my apartment. When I got the station, it was packed (average age of the crowd: 19, and in typical German fashion, they're all drinking bottles of beer) and they weren't letting people onto the platform. My friends called and I said I thought I'd be 20 minutes late. I waited for 30 minutes before I got onto a packed train. At each stop, the train would briefly stop and the people standing on the platform would look sadly at the packed train as it started again without picking up a single person.
At Ollenhauerstr., the train stops briefly and no one moves and I'm 20 people away from even attempting to get off the train. I have just enough time to wave to my friends as the train starts again and takes me to the next stop. When I get there, the doors actually open and I manage to push my way off the train. I try calling: no luck. I wait for the next train: nope. I walk the few block back to Ollenhauerstr.: there's no one there. This is not promising.
I'm pretty far from home and I need to use a bathroom, so I figure I might as well keep on going and see what's what. I follow some people in the vaguely right direction until I'm there.
I'm at the top of a bowl, where there are a bunch of biergartens and people picnicking on the lawn. You can see that one stage is behind the trees on the left and another stage is further on the right. Between the stages are food and drink stands and off to the left is a crane that takes people up for bungee jumps. All in all, the crowd is pretty mellow -- I didn't see any people who had a few or 12 too many and I didn't smell any illegal substances. And after weeks and weeks of rain, it was clear and 70 degrees the whole day. After a visit to the port-a-potty (I chose the line with the prissiest looking girls, figuring it'd be slow but less vile) and wandering a little bit, I come to a decision. I've been to the 4th of July at the Esplanade in Boston and I've been to the Taste of Chicago and I've never totally lost everybody. 150,000 is not a problem. The easiest way to solve a math or physics is to guess the right answer. The easiest way to find 2 people in a crowd of 150,000 is to go to where they would be. It's 7:30pm and I stumble upon a guy handing out maps. I snag one. They're not biergarten or picnicking peple. And I know that at very least at 8:50pm, they're going to be at the blue stage watching Calexico. There are people sitting on the grass, while people closer to the stages are all standing. They're standing sort of people. I wander to the blue stage, close enough to get to the people standing. And there they are. They, by the way, had run from our meeting point to the Rheinaue, assuming I wouldn't be able to get off before then.
We catch part of the set of Lambchop, an alt-country group from Nashville, and a little bit of Mother Tongue (at least I assume that the right link).
For me, the highlight was probably Calexico (and here, or here to listen), an alt-country band from Tucson, AZ. I tried to take a picture, but I guess it didn't turn out (there's a bunch of pictures of the crowd, Calexico, and the last act, die Fantastischen Vier, here). And for being 5 foot tall and living in Germany, I could actually see the stage at least part of the time, which I think is good for me. They sounded excellent and I'd highly recommend seeing them live. They have a little Mariachi in them, featuring a couple trumpets and/or horns. Here's two of the songs they sang (recorded at other events, though, and linked here and here):
From Lambchop to Calexico the the last act, the crowd steadily grew. The final act was die Fantastischen Vier, a German rap group. My understanding is that they're a big deal. They've been around for 18 years and the crowd knew the lyrics to most of their songs. Here is a video (up on YouTube today, taken yesterday) in which you can hear part of a song and see what it was like being there but not see the group:
And here's one of their videos (It's very old; don't worry, they weren't dressed like that live, and it turns out at least one of them must work out a lot).
The crowd was incredible: jumping up down and singing along and packed like sardines (by the way, when you're wedged against 4 people and they're jumping up and down, you'd better be jumping up and down too). I couldn't see anything and some girl was grinding into my right hip. Air temperature was probably 60 degrees, while crowd temperature was approaching 85. Crazy.
The concert was over at midnight, but all the food and drink stands were still open (guess they're not worried about drinking and driving) and all the public transportation packed. We ended up walking to one person's apartment and then he drove me most of the way home. By the time I got home at 1:30am, I'd been standing for 7.5 hours and had nearly nothing to eat or drink since I left at 5pm.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Random Thoughts about Random Covers
Flying around the world is an excellent excuse to plunk down $10-20 on new music. For the last couple of months, however, I've managed to avoid the airport. I still accrue new music, just slowly and haphazardly (mostly off of music blogs -- very addicting).
A couple days ago, I found myself listening a live version of the Futureheads' cover of Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" (I'd link it if I could only remember where ... hey, here it is!) and I realized that I have a great fondness for covers, the more random the better.
For example, here is Dynamite Hack covering N.W.A.'s "Boyz-n-the-Hood" (I think the link has a better quality video than the embedded youtube video below):
It's no George Washington, but what is?
And here is William Shatner with Joe Jackson and Ben Folds doing Pulp's "Common People" live (the song is on the Shatner's Has Been album where it's less sloppy):
Getting back to the Futureheads' cover of Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love," here's the video for the version on their album.
I love how the drummer (in addition to reminding me of a certain astrophysicist -- feel free to guess which one) looks out-of-place in the video, like he showed up to deliver a pizza and they gave him a drum and told him to stand in the woods and now he's thinking 'okay, I'll just play along and maybe I can score some of that pizza when it's over.' Do drummers always look out of place? Is that a thing? I thought maybe I could discern a trend (the astrophysicists rulebook says that I need just 3 to make a trend). The only thing I thought of, however, was the video for Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger:"
All the guys are dressed in jeans and leather jackets trying to look (hee!) menacing, except for the one guy with glasses wearing a white sport coat and loafers (is that right? it's a blurry video and my memory is fuzzy). As it turns out, he's well below even the drummer on the rock band totem pole: he plays the keyboard.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Blogging the Eurovision Song Contest
Saturday night in Germany, time to watch the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. This is the format:
1.) All the songs are performed with breaks for little skits that show life in the host country, Finland (1 hour, 45 minutes). The skits have tiny plots, some of which I would swear are plots from porn movies, and on the whole make life in Finland look cold and scary. There are 24 songs (I won't go through all of them) and there are no commercials.
2.) Everyone votes (15 minutes).
3.) The results for each country are very slowly presented (1 hour). And for some reason, Santa Claus shows up ... no, really, it was very odd.
I tuned in a couple minutes late and missed the first two songs, but dutifully watched the rest of the show. For comparison, BBC News describes and handicaps the acts.
The winners:
The winner was Serbia. Straight up power ballad, but the singer has a nice voice. What's up with the backup singers with Farrah hair? All in all, not bad:
The first runner up was Ukraine. Yes, that's a man in drag. Entertaining, but I'm not sure if it qualifies as a song.
Third place was Russia. Not good or interesting. Are those singers wearing 'slutty nuns' costumes?
The absurd:
U.K. What?!
France. Hilarious and highly entertaining, especially the bald guy with the fake cat around his neck who seems to be channeling Andy Dick or Andy Dick impersonating William Shatner.
And some of the rest:
Belarus. Terrifyingly bad. Pre-final speculation put this song close to the top and I saw one comment that said it sounded like something that would appear on the U.K. pop charts. I weep for the U.K. Commentary does rightly point out that it sounds like the theme song to a James Bond movie. It also has staging out of the David Copperfield oeuvre.
Greece. The Greek Ricky Martin, but dressed like someone's homemade Tin Man Halloween costume. Seriously, dude, you should have stuck with some basic black.
Armenia. He sings in English, but not like he knows how to speak English, which makes the song seem like bad karaoke.
Moldova. Electronic violin. Hold me, I'm scared. And, really, shouldn't this be the theme song to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome or something (not that I want to bring down the wrath of Tina Turner on me).
Finland. The Finnish version of Evanescence.
Sweden. Glam rock, but not really fun enough. The refrain to the song is "Baby, I'm the worrying kind." That's not right. An act like this should have a fun song, like the Fratellis "Chelsea Dagger" (not that they're a glam rock group).
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Counting has a theme song ...
... and this is it (it's a lot longer than I remembered).
It's almost unbelievable to me that 1.) after a few decades, this still pops into my head randomly and while, well, counting and 2.) this must be true for a large fraction of Americans in my age bracket.
And just for kicks, here is the Family Guy version.
Friday, February 02, 2007
I'm Not Even Sure What To Say About This
George Washington
Maybe when my brain recovers I'll think of something.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Bears v. Pats, Part II
I was going to wait until after this weekend's games to post this, but it's too good. I was speaking to my sister this afternoon, discussing the possibility that this year will feature a Super Bowl XX rematch of the Chicago Bears v. the New England Patriots. One of the most memorable parts of that 1985 football season was the absolute hilarity of the 'Super Bowl Shuffle,' the rap song and video recorded by members of the 1985 Chicago Bears football team. I pointed out that they recorded the song well before the playoffs had begun, and my sister pointed out that there had been a New England Patriots response song. Let the Googling and YouTube-ing begin:
The New England Patriots song is called 'New England, the Patriots, and Me.'
Unfortunately, YouTube seems to have cracked down on copies of the 'Super Bowl Shuffle,' so there's no possibility of a side-by-side comparison (here's a nice summary of the song). Let's just say that both are incredibly cheesy and short on 1.) production values and 2.) musical ability on the part of the performers and the composers. The Bears song features members of the team in their uniforms, pretending to play instruments and dancing, while 'singing' about how awesome they are. The Patriots song intercuts scenes of 'singers' in the studio, folks on the street, players, and what I presume are local celebrities 'singing' the song, along with a few shots of the Patriots playing and hugging each other. By the way the end of the line, 'New England, the Patriots, and Me' is 'rolling on to victory.'
While both these songs are terrible, as a loyal Chicagoan, I must say that the 'Super Bowl Shuffle' benefits from a clarity of purpose that the New England song lacks. It is about how awesome the Bears and that's it. The Bears 'sing' and 'dance' and each player gets a verse about their particular brand of awesomeness. The Patriots song, in contrast, is rather muddied; is it about New England or football, and what exactly is your contribution to victory? The song itself? I hope not.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
So ... you must be getting a lot of work done ...
So this has nothing to do with living/working in Germany or anything relevant, but if somehow you didn't know this already, YouTube is like crack. Except more awesome and with less Nancy Reagan.
If you didn't quite catch the '80s reference, maybe this will jog your memory:
Of course, the best anti-drug PSA is this classic:
I can personally attest that "I learned it by watching you!" has endless uses.
The point is that YouTube is for video what Google is for websites, what Wikipedia is for ... just about anything, and what the iTunes Music Stores could be for music. You need to find it or something like it, you search for it, you find it, you watch it.
Didn't quite catch that reference on the season premiere of "Veronica Mars"?
No problem.
While illicit "Daily Show" clips is probably my most frequent use of YouTube, the most awesome use is finding the old and obscure. From this "Slate.com" article, I watched a clip from R.E.M.'s first national television appearance on David Letterman's show. Dave talks to Peter Buck and Mike Mills while Michael Stipe hides behind Peter like he's one of their roadies, then they exhibit the kind of stage mannerisms that seem so '80s.
Tonight, I'm thinking about looking for clips of Nirvana performances.
Next on the blog: how much I love iChat file transfer and solid shampoo and conditioner from Lush.
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