Late night session

Tonight´s session of this night owl already included:

Listening of my favourite radio show on a session where they talked about Summer music festivals;

Nerina Pallot´s home concert/answering questions stream sessions that she used to make at her own house for pleasing her fans - yes, she is that awesome;

Listening to late night BBC Radio 2 shows...Nerina led me there;

Taking a look at photos on devianART;

Late night snacks.

If I was rich and own a shinny-fancy DSLR camera I would let you call me an hipster. I don´t even have some skinny jeans so no hipster tag here. Shame.

Also, as I mentioned night owl...this is spot on:

Note: Red notes by me.

Around The Interwebz

And around the world:

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Amazing!
And take a look to the other two short films of the series!

No comments

Why would someone that works on the online department of a newspaper arrive to a conference room for some brainstorming and suggest something like: "What if. We. Let our online readers...comment the news we post on our website?" (there´s no typos, that´s how I actually picture the man/woman saying that to a group of people seated on executive office chairs around a big table).

But the problem here is not the guy who came with this brilliant idea on his head and spent all day excited to present it. We all have bad ideas. No. The problem is the group of people around that big table that went: "But. That´s a brilliant idea!!! How we didn´t think of this before?! Brilliant! Let´s do it."

And off they went apply it.

Now I wonder if those same people who thought this would be a good idea actually give a read to the comments on the news that they write. Well, watching how well written are some pieces of "journalism" I see in some online newspapers I believe that they don´t even read their own texts to see if there´s any mistakes.

I usually take a look to two [Portuguese] online newspapers. One because I bought it during a period of time due to the free offer of a photography course and liked their work and a economic one that is available free of charge at my college (an interesting surprise) and that after getting it every day I started to enjoy their work too and now, on holidays, like I´m not there to get it I take a look at the website. I also tend to miss the news on television hence this look around the papers.

If you´re looking for a despicable laugh look no further than an article at any of these, or any other, newspaper that let post comments. I could tell you I have a ton of adjectives to try to describe how they look like but let´s just say "ridiculous" is pretty high on that list of adjectives. If you´re feeling down and really dumb and wondering if there is someone dumber than you take a look at those comments and you are as good as new. Sure that the executives thought about not letting some [cussing/rude] words be posted but they weren´t counting with the smartasses they would have posting at their websites would use such options as including @, _, !, and other smartasses tools to get around that restriction.

You would think that the economic one being sort of elitist and directed to a specific group would have good and clear comments. Forget it. And then they let people reply to others people comments which, obviously, being this world The Internet World, a discussion will 99% of the times end with 1) insults or 2) who has the biggest weener.

You would in fact think that this kind of newspapers would look up to the likes of The New York Times or The Guardian as international references often cited in their articles and follow the example of non-available comments. Despite some of the long [opinion] articles. Why? Smartasses won´t read that long to make an easy joke. Too much of a trouble. And probably contains words they never heard of.

And nowadays with everyone [read: newspapers] having a Facebook page and posting links to their news over there you would think they could leave the comments only to that platform. But no. Why? Let´s just say that Anonymous or any sort of smartass pseudonym is a way easier way to get your smartass point across. Be a smartass and show your real name and face is not that fun.

Recent Illusion

Can please someone, preferably a female specimen, tell me that a couple of conversations with a girl does not make me, or even more important, that person like me in a, let´s say, very interesting way? I know that I´ve just found a singer called Nerina Pallot and that her, now husband, proposed to her after a 30 minutes talk when 31 minutes before they didn´t even know each other but let´s not be naive, that´s an one in a million movie-like event and that dude is a lucky mate. He is. She´s awesome.

Just because the conversations were actually interesting and lasted for some hours let´s not push things forward. I know that even the awkward silences were not that awkward...but that might had happened only on my side. Anyway after one month why do I keep thinking about it? What´s really fun and plain weird is that besides all this I still don´t have the best idea of that person´s personality and at the same time enjoyed her that much. I haven´t seen her after this period of time, we don´t live near each other and on a move that I´m usually awful at I got no reply to a text message I sent (better than receive this one though). Me and my head. I think too much.

And that´s why I think this song can be featured here:

Because that´s me.

The Trailer

Despite being watching a movie every night for the past weeks I´ve never considered myself a good cinema fan. That happens mostly because my cinema-memory is quite awful. Titles, Directors, even which actors were in a certain movie don´t really stick on my head. I have favourite actors but even following their work and go watch at the cinema their latest movie is many times a mission not accomplished. In fact I don´t even go to the cinema that often. Among other reasons my brilliant town has only 2 rooms...which nowadays doesn´t make any sense...and this is not a small town for Portuguese standards.

Anyway I try to pay attention to movie releases and this days with social networking is quite easy to be well informed.

While consulting an online newspaper I saw a reference to the following movie due to the existence of 2 different trailers and 2 different promotion posters because apparently (well...nothing we didn´t know already...) Americans despite throwing liberalism at your face they are the biggest prudes of the modern world and they can´t have a poster with a girl showing her boobs. On a side note here´s another proof of USA´s liberalism

And here´s the trailer: (press 720p for a better experience...and raise the volume)

Now if this isn´t the most badass trailer of a movie you ever saw...

I´ve never heard of this movie before (and there´s already a Swedish version of it...because it´s based on a Swedish trilogy by Stieg Larsson) and also never heard about the books but I wanted to read them as soon as I discovered the movie only comes out later this year thus giving me time to read all three of them.

And meanwhile I´ll try watch the Swedish version too. Just like a new fanboy that hipsters are going to hate. Hipsters...they are awesome. Easy hipsters...I might add that now that I checked the book covers I remember come across this books every time I entered a book store...and that happens quite often. Take that hipsters!

Never thought it was a best seller (there´s where hipsters get mad if you didn´t know) and now sales will go up even more with this movie coming out and having David Fincher directing, Daniel Craig on it and Trent Reznor as soundtrack author of which you can have a taste on this trailer with the collaboration of Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

In conclusion looking forward for some good reading and that excitement of knowing that the book that you read will end up on a cinema screen. After all Atonement was great wasn´t it?

This is, yet again, a musical post

Remember my last post? It was not that long ago. And a bit of scroll down can be a good help for a reminder. Just saying.

I will try fight my usual inclusion of a Youtube video or any sort of links in a word.

This just started and I digress already. Digress is my new favourite word.

It is because 1) I just learnt it 2) was the word I was looking forward to describe my habit of going around in circles before getting to the main point and 3) Nerina Pallot (last post...have you read the first sentence of this post or not?) digresses a lot too as you can see on her blog on Myspace - yes, such thing still exists - and on her homemade videos on nerinapallottv (Youtube channel).

Fourth paragraph is the main point. I´m in absolute awe with Nerina Pallot´s (read "Pallow") music and personality. She´s amazing. If there´s one thing [digress alert] I´ve learnt with "Rage Comics" (no link...Google it) is that I´m not the only person in the world to whom happens or do awkward and strange things. So I´m probably not the only one jumping from passion to passion when it comes to music singers. I´m sorry dear Norge Marit, dear Dutchie Laura, dear Yank Diane but Nerina owns the stage by now. And I just found she used to write some big blog entries on Myspace as mentioned before...and while I´m reading she just keeps growing on me. Even if it was written way back - I usually found this musicians blogs when they stopped writing them long ago...

Her first two albums are on their way. I believe the other two will be soon. They aren´t yet because no Summer job means no money and this way I can also appreciate and give the necessary amounts of play to "Dear Frustrated Superstar" (bold name for a first album) and "Fires" (a masterpiece to who likes this kind of music as told by some [biased] people - Nerina´s fans).

On another note besides naming her son Wolfgang Amadeus (I will totally propose this name to my future wife) - and besides, for what I could gather until now, a proper Arsenal fan - she also has quite a story on how she met her husband. It wouldn´t give such a long story as the show How I Met Your Mother, that´s going up to 8 seasons, but it would sure be quite a fantastic story too. Wouldn´t go much further than a pilot episode when it comes to show duration but would be worth make it. As I found on a comment on a picture with the magazine article about it on her Facebook page "That´s all I ever wanted. That´s all I fear I´ll never get". I can only second that. Yup, is that lame and worth take a look. As told here already and me being such a Ted Mosby (Google it...) I wouldn´t mind at all have such lame moment.

Think this is enough promotion already or I would proceed the digress (overuse of word already?) and rambling on this musical passion until sleep kicks in. And it´s late already. But I believe those records soon on my mail box will be played to [perhaps non-existing] exhaustion because I believe I can listen to "Sophia" on repeat to the rest of my life. It also can be the heat of the moment...

P.S. I feel like I should present you another artist I finally decided to give some attention but I´m not whiling to steal Nerina´s spotlight with a post of her full of videos and complimenting words about her but you really should check Laura Marling. Unbelievable talented! She sure deserves a post with all of that I mentioned. Some other day...some other day.

*update* P.S.1 One of many interesting quotes of Nerina that I found in an old interview but still rather up to date:

"It takes courage to like anything just because you like it, in a world where we’re being told what we ought to like because a majority does, and when being ‘different’ is now much like being the same as everyone else."

*update2* Just read on a blog entry where she digresses on a nomination to an award that her favourite songs of 2007 were Chasing Cars [Snow Patrol] and...(not the very best of them but still!) Supermassive Black Hole by Muse. And some nice words about Arctic Monkeys too. Oh Nerina.

It´s just this. No idea if any more updates will appear here but stay tuned.

It´s Music To Your Ears

I like to have a story for this musical part of the blog in order to don´t turn it rather blank and with only a YT video on the post. So here we go:

Studying on a city that is not the one where you live you need to have lunch in that city every other day. There´s an whole lot of choices where I study. Canteen, college bars and tons of restaurants/bars/coffee places around it that serve cheap meals to attract students. While growing up I was always lucky enough to not need to eat at the canteen and have grandma´s recipes. Literally.
Despite the nice meals available on my canteen, I decided to go for the shopping mall 5/10 minutes away in a walking distance from my incredibly ugly college campus. It´s probably my favourite one in this land full of them and it´s a nice place to be in. There´s also cheap meals there plus every once in a while I get to have lunch with a friend that works there.

On one of many lunches there I´ve noticed the music played on the sound speakers was rather cool (meaning: stuff that I like). Snow Patrol, Keane, Joss Stone, Paloma Faith(!) among others. But, and after listening to an unknown one several times - yes, they play on repeat - I found myself wondering "Who the hell sounds this very nice Italian song?!" but with a ceiling 15 meters away from my head, where the sound columns are on, it wasn´t easy get the lyrics to google them later.

Thus I decided to arrive home and go search on the Italians charts if the music was there. An Italian song in Portugal is not that usual so this one must be very well known over there to get airplay here. That or you are Laura Pausini or Eros Ramazzotti (our radios loved them back in the day...). But nothing.

Until one day when I was getting out of the mall by the exit college students like me must use - underground parking lot...with a steep exit - and there (yes there´s sound speakers there too...fancy.) I´ve noticed the song was not Italian...but English. *Pokerface followed by facepalm*

Stopped a bit to quickly put some of the lyrics on the phone in time to no one see me staring at nothing in an underground parking because that´s a weird thing to do. I think.

Arrived home just to find out the great singer that is Nerina Pallot. And she´s on that cliché group of singers that for some strange reason don´t get the credit and attention they deserve.

The song:
I know..."how the fuck he thought this was Italian?!"...

She´s also the author of one of the best covers I´ve ever listened to:



Plus she seems a great person. To start she´s an Arsenal fan...with a great sense of humour as you can see in the end of this .

You can also follow her on twitter here for musical info and here to know what´s the latest Ebay item she´s into.