Live Redemption: Katy Perry

Okay, so I know most people don't like KP and I admit, a lot of her songs - especially on her new CD - sound like robotvoice.  I think it's a shame, though, because she really has a nice/unique voice and is a talented songwriter.  She's just an easy target when pointing fingers at "all those girls who can't really sing" because she's hot and doesn't hide it.  While I can't wait for her to turn down the showgirl image a little and be more serious, I still think she has some of the most original pop songs out on the radio today.

For this Live Redemption, I want to contrast her aweful Saturday Night Live performance with what she actually can do.  And on the same note, why does everybody sound so gross on SNL?

The Unfortunate:



The Less Unfortunate:



The Better:

The Outsiders

Did you have to read The Outsiders in school?  I remember reading it in 7th grade at Elgin Middle School.  S. E. Hinton wrote it when she was only 16.  We were in Oklahoma, she was from Oklahoma, and the novel was set in Oklahoma, so I guess it just fit.  It was also one of the reasons I loved school. 

I didn't really care for most of the other people at school, but still liked being in class.  I remember coming to last period English on a hot day like almost every day.  The shades were drawn half way and the room was cool.  Miss Kerr started reading to us.  The whole class was silent, following along in our books until the bell rang.  It's nice to be drawn into a story like that and silently share it with so many people around you.

On a side note, have you read The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac?  I've never read any of his books, even though they had an exhibit about Kerouac at the Orange County History Center while I volunteered there.  (He wrote it in Orlando.) 

Network TV Fall Shows

I can't wait for the new Fall shows to start.  After my wild Saturday night of watching five hours straight of Hoarders: Buried Alive with my mom, it's a good thing something new is on.  The shows I'm most excited about:

- Modern Family this Wednesday at 9:00pm on ABC
- I'll admit: I'll be watching Cougar Town this Wednesday right after Modern Family
- Running Wilde this Tuesday at 9:30pm on Fox

And of course the Thursday NBC block with:
- Community at 8:00pm
- 30 Rock at 8:30pm
- The Office at 9:00pm
- I'll probably watch Outsourced, but I heard it isn't very good.  Based on the previews, I can see why.

I'll also check in on The Simpsons this Sunday at 8:00pm on Fox.

The only new show that I'm really looking forward to is Running Wilde -- mainly because it stars Will Arnett and will have guest appearances by David Cross.  That should make for a pretty good Gob/Tobias-inspired reunion.  Also, I like Keri Russell from Waitress a few years back.

I think the highlight of this season will be the completely live episode of 30 Rock airing October 14th.  They'll be doing two shows, one for East and one for West Coast.  I hope there's a way to see them both.

Too bad Parks and Recreation won't come back until next Spring...

VMAs 2010

Thank goodness for the ability to record TV shows.  After skipping the commercials and performances I didn't want to see, I think I spent about an hour watching what would've been a three hour show.  Especially because it wasn't very good.

It's kind of sad that the musical talent at the Emmys (Jimmy Fallon and a number by Jewel) was better than most of what we saw at the MTV Video Musica Awards.  Most people at the VMAs started singing live and then switched immediately to background recordings.  I realize you need that when you're dancing around (like Usher), but when your background recording screams AutoTune and your dancing takes you back to the '90s, it's a little depressing.  I was even disappointed by "good" singers like Taylor Swift, who usually sounds okay live but this time was so quiet I couldn't hear her. 

The one act I was impressed by, though, was the seamless four-song combo by Bruno Mars, B.o.b., Hayley Williams, and Parramore.  I don't even like any of their songs especially, but the way they melted into one sequence over the different genres impressed me.  Oh, and what?  People singing without background vocals or a huge band and even singing AND playing an instrument?  Uh-oh. 



I thought Mary J. Blige sounded great as always even though only being the "featuring" part of the song she was in; Florence and the Machine was also great.  Eminem did a duet about abuse that I only listen to because of the female part... wait, didn't he already do that in like '99?  Lady Gaga was her usual annoying self, but could've at least performed.  Also missed Katy Perry and Beyonce.  Overall, the show was pretty bad, but I was mainly watching it for Chelsea Handler anyway.

Downloading Torrents

Torrents are a quick and easy way to download nearly anything, including music, software, and books.  The first thing you need is a program.  Some of the most common ones are µTorrent, BitTorrent, and BitLord, and are usually supported by Windows, Mac, etc. 

After you've installed the program, just search for whatever you want and include "torrent" (e.g. [album name] torrent).  You can also try sites like The Pirate Bay to avoid browsing unknown sites that might be hazardous to your computer.  Just save the file to your desktop, drag and drop it into your torrent program, and delete the torrent from your desktop.  However, BitLord is my favorite program because it includes an integrated search.

Whatever you do, never pay for a torrent!

Depending on your torrent program and operating system, your finished file will appear somewhere either My Documents > Downloads or My Computer > C: > Program Files > [Program Name, e.g. BitLord] > Downloads. 

NOTE: Be aware that torrent audio files probably won't work with the newest version of iTunes (9.2). 

Work of Art

Currently I'm addicted to Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.  Same set-up as Top Chef (which I'm also hooked on), but craftier and with more neurotic people.  Check it out!

Watch Work of Art here.  (Click "Read More" to see all parts of the episode, or "Next Entries" to see newer episodes.)

Rock in Rio 2010

Man, it´s been a while, huh?  There are a lot of things I want to write about, but for now I just want to report/brag that I went to Rock in Rio last weekend at Arganda del Rey, outside of Madrid.  I got to see Calle 13, Rihanna, Shakira, and David Guetta.  The shows were great and made me forget all about the long trip, the heat, the expensive drinks, and the pushy a-holes.

About.com

There are websites I keep going to over and over.  One of those sites is About.com.  No matter what I´m searching for, the About websites always show up and are usually the most helpful ones.  For example, I use their Spanish page for grammar explanations.  I also signed up for the email word of the day.  They also cover a lot of other languages, so check it out.

Each area - whether languages, travel, health, cooking, computers, history, etc.- is run by a specialist in that area.  The sites are constantly updated with new articles, discussions, newsletters, blog entries, and emails.  You can find quality daily or weekly email courses covering tons of topics at About U.

Watch Movies Online

I love watching movies on my laptop, but hate downloading the movies to my harddrive. It´s slow and takes up a lot of space on your disk... besides the whole "being illegal" thing. Luckily there are a lot of sites that let you stream movies directly from the Internet without any sort of downloading. Sites that I´ve mentioned before for watching TV also have movies, but the best source for movies I´ve found so far is Watch Movies.


The site has nearly every movie you´ve ever wanted to watch. For most of the movies there are different links to try with user ratings. The quality of course varies and can be anywhere from perfect to pixelated with chinese subtitles. But for me, at least, it still beats downloading.

LibriVox Free Audiobooks

A really cool site a friend showed me a while back is LibriVox.  If you´re at all interested in audio books, you have to check it out.  Volunteers record public domain books that you can download for free.  You can also volunteer to read and record for others to download. 

Right now they have nearly 10,000 audio clips in English and of those 3000 are complete books.  Through the advanced search you can also find hundreds of books and articles in different languages.

Schon vor Längerem hat mir jemand LibriVox gezeigt, eine Internetseite auf der man kostenlos Unmengen von Hoerbüchern herunterladen kann.  Obwohl die meisten der tausenden Bücher und Artikel auf English sind, gibt es auch einige auf Deutsch und in anderen Sprachen.  Man kann sich auch freiwillig als Vorleser anmelden und mithelfen.

Use Your Local Library

Unfortunately, it's already the last day of Easter break and I'm definitely not ready to go back to school/work.  But in the meantime, I want to share something that I'm surprised people (including myself) don't use more: public libraries.  It's like a Borders with free books, music, and movies.  If you're lucky, you can find anything a nerdy heart desires, from manga to computer games to foreign language software.  They don't have what you want at a library close to you?  Most deliver free to your house.

The Orange County Library Systems in Orlando and surrounding area has tons to offer, and other libraries aren't any different.  They have really interesting free classes, either in person or online.  The selection is huge, and some of them, like Photoshop and Microsoft Access, are expensive if you take them at other places.  Other classes include help with taxes, job searching, computer repair, web design, and networking.  In Orlando and other areas classes are offered in Spanish and even in Hatian Creole.

A new page I came across today deals with bookclubs.  Libraries offer book clubs in English and Spanish, but what I never realized is that they have online bookclubs.  For example, OCLS will send you a few pages of a book everyday by email.  They have a new book every week.  Apart from that they have guides for creating your own bookclubs and the option to borrow "bundles" of books for your whole group.

Although libraries are moving more and more online with email bookclubs, online classes, and downloadable ebooks and audio books, it's definitely worth checking out the programs they offer at the library. 

Why the BBC rules my life

Even though I make a big stink at school about teaching American English and culture (I mean, there are five times as many Americans as English people), I'm secretly in love with England and especially the BBC.  Obviously the BBC has great news, but here are three other things you might not have known about the BBC website:

- BBC's Get Cooking is amazing.  They have tons of videos showing you everything from tips and techniques to complete recipes.  They cover knife skills, how to store your food, how to whip cream and eggwhites by hand, how to shell a crab, different meat cuts - just to name a few.  Their selection of English and international starters, main dishes, and desserts are delicious.

-  A great resource for English teachers is BBC Learning English.  This page takes news stories and seasonal topics and simplifies them for English learners.  Each story includes a listening activity and vocabulary explanations.  They also have weekly shows and guest bloggers.

- BBC Languages offers audio courses, video courses, and phrase guids for 36 different languages.  The main courses are for French, German, Italian, and Spanish, but there are also many resources for the other languages.  I love that they've made an effort to include less-common languages, like Urdu, Gaelic, Basque, etc.  You can also find cultural topics and teachers' resources.  My favorite so far has been the French video program Ma France. 

What's your favorite BBC page?

 

Im Moment unterrichte ich Englisch an einer Schule in Spanien, und als halb-Amerikaner lege ich viel mehr wert auf US-Englisch als auf britisches English (es gibt immerhin fünf mal mehr Amerikaner also Briten).  Trotzdem bin ich insgeheim ein Englandfan, insbesondere vom BBC.  Natürlich hat das BBC sehr gute Nachrichten, aber hier sind drei Dinge die man nicht von einer Nachrichtenwebseite erwartet:

-  Die Kochseite von BBC, Get Cooking, ist fantastisch.  Man findet dort unmenge Rezepte sowie Tipps und Tricks zu fast allem was in der Küche passieren kann.  Die englischen und internationalen Rezepte sind sehr lecker und gut erklärt.

-  BBC Learning English ist klasse zum Englishlernen oder -unterrichten.  Viele aktuelle Themen werden in leicht verständlichem English geschrieben mit Audio zum Mithören und Vokabelm zum Lernen.

-  Bei BBC kann man auch andere Sprachen als English lernen, 36 um genau zu sein.  Mit BBC Languages kann man kostenlose Video- und Audio-kurse mitmachen um die häufigsten Sprachen zu lernen.  Es gibt jedoch auch Schnellkurse und Vokabeln um viele anderen Sprachen zu lernen, wie z.B. Gälisch, Türkisch, Maltesisch, etc.

Was ist deine lieblings BBC Seite?

Rilo Kiley "Silver Lining"

I've had this song stuck in my head for the past two weeks. 
Ohrwurm schon seit zwei Wochen.

Daria Complete Animated Series on DVD

I've been trying to post no more than once a day to avoid running out of things to write about, but I'm too excited for this one.  I just found out on May 11th 2010, the complete series of one of my favorite shows ever will be released on DVD.  You can pre-order it at Amazon and it includes all five seasons as well as both movies.  I heard it took them so long because they had to get the rights to all the songs they used in the series.  Either way, remember whose birthday is in May...

Ich versuche nicht mehr als einmal am Tag etwas so schreiben, dass ich nach einer Woch noch was zu berichten habe, aber ich bin zur Zeit sehr aufgeregt.  Ich habe gerade herausgefunden, dass eine meiner Lieblingssendungen am 11. Mai auf DVD erscheint.  Alle fünf Staffeln un beide Filme in einem Set.  Denk dran wer im Mai Geburtstag hat...

Social City

Recently I've been addicted to the Facebook game SocialCity.  It seems like everyone's been all over Farm Frenzy for a while now, but this is my first Facebook game.  It's like a super-simple version of SimCity (which I love), but you play in "real time."  For example, people come to your city every few hours;  contracts to make money are completed in a few hours up to two days, depending on how big the contract is.  Over all it's pretty fun, something to slowly watch grow.  I'm a little annoyed, though, that they want you to buy "city bucks" with real money to buy select buildings. Also, I can't expand my city without neighbors... I guess that's what I get for ignoring everyone's Farm Frenzy requests for the past year.

Neuerdings spiele ich sehr oft das neue Facebookspiel SocialCity.  Viele spielen schon länger ein anderes Facebookspiel, Farm Frenzy, aber SocialCity ist mein erstes Facebookspiel.  Es ist wie eine vereinfachte, echtzeit Version von SimCity, eins meiner absoluten Lieblingsspiele.  Echtzeit hier heißt Sachen passieren im Laufe des Tages: alle paar Stunden kommen neue Einwohner, Verträge um Geld zu verdienen werden zwischen ein paar Stunden und ein paar Tagen fertiggestellt.  Es macht Spaß, seiner Stadt langsam beim wachsen zuzuschauen.  Was aber nervt, ist dass man für einige Gebäude "city bucks" braucht, die man mit echtem Geld kaufen muss.  Außerdem brauch man Nachbarn, also andere Facebookfreunde die mitspielen, um seine Stadt zu erweitern, aber zur Zeit spielen noch nicht viele SocialCity.

Watch TV Online

A lot of people have already figured this one out, but I'll share it anyway: how to watch TV shows online.

I'm obsessed with a few TV shows. But besides living abroad the past six months, I also haven't had cable in my house for almost three years. Now that my mommy's not here to record shows for me, I switched to online mode. While you can watch shows on the channel's website, you a) have to sit through commercials and b) they don't work abroad. Here are some other options:

1. A really good site to use is Hulu.com. It has a lot of shows, some movies, and is updated regularly. However, it doesn't work outside of the US. Also, a quick check showed that older shows you used to watch might not be on it (Rocko's Modern Life, Clarissa Explains it All, Ghostwriter...).

2. A friend of mine told me about TVshack.net. It's like Hulu, but seems to have more shows and movies, especially old ones. The big plus: it works outside the US. One drawback is that a lot of shows are on Megavideo, which only lets you watch about an hour of shows/movies at a time. When this happens, simply replug your router to get a new IP address or hide your IP address (see below).

3. Another drawback of TVshack is that it doesn't have the episode the same day as it comes out sometimes. When that happens, I've found TVduck.com to work.

4. The last thing I want to mention is a program calld HotSpot Shield. This program safely hides your IP address from evil hackers. What this actually means is that you can watch episodes on the shows' official channels. This is helpful for some sports broadcasts as well as other things not available outside the US, like Pandora. The only problem is that it puts an extra ad on every single page you look at and really slows down your Internet.

Happy viewing!

Heute zeige ich euch einige Seiten auf denen man (amerikanische) Sendungen und Filme sich anschauen kann:

1. Eine gute Seite ist Hulu.com. Leider funktioniert diese Seite nicht außerhalb der USA...

2. Ein Freund hat mir TVshack.net gezeigt. Man kann fast alle Sendungen und viele Filme schauen, sogar außerhalb der USA. Was nicht so toll ist, ist dass man manche Sendungen oder Filme nur über Megavideo spielen kann. Mit diesem "Player" kann man nur eine Stunde am Tag was schauen. Wenn das passiert, muss man aber nur sein Internet neu starten. Man kann auch seine IP Adresse verstecken (siehe unten).

3. Manchmal hat TVshack die neuesten Folgen nicht am selben Tag, an dem sie in den USA ausgestrahlt werden. Wenn das passiert, hat TVduck oft die neusten Folgen.

4. Ein sehr gutes Programm nennt sich HotSpot Shield. Mit diesem Programm kann man seine IP Adresse verstecken. D.h. Internetseiten wissesn nicht dass man nicht in Amerika ist. Mit dieser Software kann man also alles auf Hulu oder den ofiziellen Seiten der Sender schauen. Seiten wie Pandora, die normalerweise nicht außerhalb der USA funktionieren, kann man jetzt auch besuchen. Das große Nachteil: viel Reklame und dadurch langsames Internet auf allen Seiten.

Frohes glotzen!

City Poster Notebooks

I'll just be honest up front: these creative posts won't happen a lot. In the words of someone I used to know, "I'm a very creative person who happens to be lazy." After a day of yelling at children at school, the last thing I want to do is glue shit together.

Nonetheless, I present to you: city poster notebooks. It started with a drunk night out in Madrid when my friend Kelly and I decided we needed to tear off every cool poster and keep it -- apparently a long time hobby of hers. Some cheap notebooks and half a gluestick later, they're finished.

They make good gifts. They make good souvenirs. Look for ones that say the same of the city, metro stops, street names, famous venues... Bonus points for dates.

Ich bin mal ganz ehrlich: diese kreativen Posts werden nicht oft passieren. Wie jemand einst sagte: "Ich bin eine sehr kreative Person die zufällig faul ist." Das letzte was ich nach einem Tag voller Kinder anschreien machen will sind klebrige Hobbys.

Trotzdem stelle ich vor: Stadt Plakat Notiztblöcke. Alles fing in einer trunkenen Nacht in Madrid an. Eine Freundin von mir, Kelly, und ich beschlossen, alle coolen Plakete von den Mauern zu reißen. Einige billigen Blöcke und einen halben Prittstift später, voilà.

Sie sind gut zum verschenken sowie als Souvenirs. Je mehr über die Stadt draufsteht, desto besser. Extra cool sind Straßennamen, berühmte Gebäude, ein Datum, etc.

Bienvenue

I know what you're thinking. "Wait, what? Where did that awesome food blog go I always read?" Rest assured, it's in a safe new home with a much more fitting name: alexsnax.blogspot.com. You should probably visit it and follow it.

Oh, that wasn't your question? You're wondering why I'm starting another blog I won't keep up? Well, it's because I have other things I should be working on but would rather do this because it's been floating in the back of my brain all day.

The goal of this blog will be to provide a place for technology, art, and entertainment to mix, mingle, get a little tipsy, and just plain hang out. I'll write about the things I love to talk about: TV, movies, web design, artsy things, books (that I never finish), and various Internet things.