Up, close and personal

After so many flames and wrath, I had to be nice for a while (or a post, at least), so I decided to find something I like. The Key of Awesome it is. These guys have a weekly musical web show where they do parodies on most top chart pop starts and whatever they fancy (which is usually equally hilarious, anyway). Just watch their video "I'll never be an emo vampire" and you'll get what I mean :D
And they are not only funny in video, the songs are really hilarious (they even include the lyrics for us, not native-speakers!). They started with a neat flick on people obsessed with kittens on the web (c'mon, we all have a friend like that) sung by ... Metallica!! They've got really catchy songs, but the one that has been bumping over my head during the last week has been Telephone, with Lady Gaga and Beyonce.



I had not seen the original video yet, but I did not really need to :D:D:D Now that I've seen it, I can say that this one is positively better and makes more sense :P

But, hey, no hard feelings. Everybody knows you don't f**k with the Gaga!



BTW, their last video is on Michael Jackson watching Glee. Enough, I say :D

(You'll have to forgive me with this one, guys, but some things are better said in spanish :P)

¿Alguno es tan viejo como para acordarse de como era Shakira al principio de los tiempos? Pues voy a refrescaros la memoria. Esta es la Shakira que yo escuchaba y disfrutaba:



Y esta es la que le pidio consejos estilisticos a Madonna para hacer un video (no se tiene que estar riendo nada, la Madonna, que seguro que penso que despues de esto ya nunca perderia el puesto de reinona del pop)


¿Alguien es capaz de encontrar las 5 diferencias? Mmmm, pues si, en la primera lleva las manos sucias, en la segunda lleva una pulsera en el tobillo ... y algo mas debe haber, pero ahora no caigo. La que si parece que ha caido es ella del tercer piso, porque la postura debe ser dolorosisima. Yo creo que, en algun momento, le ha debido de morder el espiritu de Lady Gaga en luna llena y ya no hay nada que hacer por la pobre chica.

Despues de sufrir en silencio (como las hemorroides) los cada vez mas horripilantes cambios no solo en el estilismo, sino en el tono y letra de sus canciones y, sobre todo, en la cantidad de ropa que (no) lleva encima, el video de la loba esa me decidió a poner punto y final a la relacion musical que mantenia con esta mujer desde sus primeros discos (y algun que otro concierto), porque esto es ya mas triste que ver a Bob Dylan tomar clases de estilismo de Tamara y Paco Clavel. Y no es solo la apariencia, que va. Porque, ¿y las letras?. Esto es de mi cancion favorita, Inevitable. Cantautora, con un estilo original, buena voz ...

Siempre supe que es mejor
Cuando hay que hablar de dos
Empezar por uno mismo
Ya sabras la situacion
Aqui todo esta peor
Pero al menos aun respiro
No tienes que decirlo
No vas a volver
Te conozco bien
Ya buscare que hacer contigo
El cielo esta cansado ya de ver
La lluvia caer
Y cada dia que pasa es uno mas
Parecido a ayer
No encuentro forma alguna de
Olvidarte porque
Seguir amandote es inevitable

Y esta "perla" (buscada en Internet, que lo que habla no hay quien lo entienda) del ultimo single Loca (loca hay que estar para ir cuesta abajo y sin frenos despues de una carrera musical tan prometedora, eso si es verdad)

That girl is a naughta
I heat up when I touch her
Chica caliente
Got me rapping to merengue
I feel so el presidente
I’m runnin’ shit and I’m lovin’ it
She’s got a mean lil’ butt,
But you should see what she does with it
She keeps it down low (down low, down low)
I can never get enough (oh no, oh no)

No es ya el estilo pendon verbenero-mujer objeto-guarrona al que ultimamente ya nos tiene acostumbrados a los sufridos fans, sino la remezcla de todos los topicazos latinos que se le pasan por la cabeza al letrista de turno (por favor, que alguien me diga que no es ella!!), mas aquello de que la mitad no hay quien lo entienda. Vamos, que por no entender, no se entiende ni en que lenguaje habla. ¿Que es eso del sofa burgues? Y mejor ni nos reimos del asesinato que perpetra al ingles. Para eso ya estan los americanos (!). Los ingleses simplemente habran decidido que el Dr Who la elimine de su realidad.

A mi solo se me ocurre echarle la culpa de todo ... a ¡Emilio Estefan! ¡Bien que a su mujer la quitó de la farándula y de las Miami Sound Machine (que vienen a ser como 3 Shakiras como la de ahora, igual las ha clonado o algo) y la puso a cantar merengue y son cubano, bien tapadica hasta las rodillas! ¡Malditooo! ¡Asi se te atasque en la tele el video de la loba y no puedas ver Bob Esponja!

Por lo menos, siempre hay alguien contento, claro. Debe ser la primera vez que alguien cambia para parecerse a Paulina Rubio y no al reves :P

Este post va dedicado a la Aplicadilla, otra victima como yo del malvado Estefan y su Miami Cash Machine

Don't you sometimes have experiences that you'd rather have not and chastisize yourself to never, ever fall into the same mistake again? Sure you do. But, then, is it possible that after years pass you can't recall exactly what was so bad about them and fall into the same trap? That is exactly my case. For example, each time I go hiking to the mountains and sleep outdoors after a whole day climbing. Or whenever I find out (with horror) that the movie I'm actually watching is directed by Michael Bay(!).

And it was definitely the case with Interview with a vampire. I'm sorry for the fans, but the book bored me to death, I did not like any of the characters and I just finished it because I have this compulsion not to leave a book until the last page even if I don't like it. Well, ten years later, I found The Witching Hour and someone had told me it was a great book, so I go and start reading it. Boohooo! Anne Rice just like I suddenly remembered her: long, boring descriptions, snail-slow pace that makes you forget about any interest you could have in the story after a while and, certainly, devious sex scenes ranging from incest to whatever comes to (her) mind. And, worst of all, completely open final that forces you to go and buy another brick of a book to learn what the heck happens to the characters (not that you care for any of them at a personal level, mind you, but if you are curious...). And where is the key to understand the whole book? (the lasher) In the next volume, of course.

I should start tatooing the authors I hate in my body as in Memento, in case I find myself reading another Da Vinci code in a few years ...

When one does not have much time for PS2 or XBox, there's always NDS to fool around and, in this case, I just finished Bleach: the Third Phantom. Amazingly, they did not fall in the classic fight game trap, where each title is basically the same the previous was, except with (maybe) more playable characters, different backgrounds and new combos. In this case, they went for a "Valkirie profile" kind of game, where you get a story and strategy. And the story (by Kubo) is even linked to the main stream! In fact, I found it more appealing than the current episodes, which have fallen in the usual "get your ass kicked-train to get more power-beat the enemy to pulp-find someone more powerful" routine that every fight anime seems to eventually fall into at some point. At least, characters do interact (some of them, quite a lot, mind you :P) We get a lot of secondary characters (and not only the most popular ones according to who-knows-what poll in Japan) And you still have time to beat up Arrancar, Espada and whatnots. I did play as the girl, BTW.


Now, if only I could get the time to finish Fall Out 3! It's hard to be the local paladin, side-missions never seem to stop :P

Yep, I know I've been pretty quiet here lately, but time is scarce, so let's go to the point: what I've been reading lately. In most cases, borrowed books, but I met Book Depository and it has been love at first sight :D



Fear Nothing (Dean Koontz)
Christopher Snow is extremely sun-sensitive, so he lives in the night. And, yet, somehow, he is a surfer in California, mind you. And super-cool, like every Koont's main character (note ironic tone here). And he seems to be the only person in town who realizes everyone is acting weird and there are strange creatures on the loose (if you've read ANY other book by the author, no real surprise here). I don't know why I read this. I do not like Koontz's books. They are boring. They are slow. And their ending is completely off-the-hook. It seems at first we are getting somewhere, but eventually, everything is caused by some government experiment and grows to epic proportions, totally out of the hands of the characters that simply decide to go on with their lives. I just read this books every bunch of years, when I forget what a total disappointment was the previous one, just like Roland Emmerich's films (well, in this case, it is usually because I forget to check the movie director before I watch the film and then I curse myself again and again along the very looooong movie...)


Pride, perjudice and zombies (Seth Grahame-Smith)
This was a gift from my brother in law, and, hey, it's fun. Basically, there is not much difference with respect to Austen's original work, except for some beheading and kung-fu. I was not expecting much of the book and that's what I got, but I enjoyed a good laugth here and there and freshened my Austen. Only I ended with this longing to find a husband for every single friend ...


The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril (Paul Malmont)
Maybe I was expecting too much of this novel, but it turned out to be too boring to be an action pulp and too pulp to be anything else. In 1937, Walter Gibson, the mind behind The Shadow, and his rival Lester Dent, creator of Doc Savage team up to solve H. P. Lovecraft's murder. And there are chinese foes involved, surely. I just could not get interested in the plot, even though it had every element for me to love it.


Truckers (Terry Pratchett)
I might be on a low streak, because I did not get interested in this one either. Unlike the Discworld series, that usually put a smile in my face in every page, Truckers is too dark to really be funny. It focus on the troubles of a tribe of nomes who have always lived inside a mall when outers arrive there just in time to discover that the mall is about to be demolished. The novel point on this is that gnomes live shorter lives, so generations come and go in barely a century and their society reflects that. It is not bad, but not up to Discworld standards.



Private Wars (Greg Rucka)
I hit the jackpot with this one! I like Rucka in general, and Queen and Country usually makes my day (unless I'm kind of low, in that case, I avoid it at all costs). Tara Chace is a british spy (in a very realistic tone) who has just lost a lover and given birth to a daughter, yet she can not really leave the thrill of a job she both loves and hates. She is offered a mission in diplomatically crucial Uzbekistan. President Malikov is ailing, and a succession fight between his son, Ruslam, and evil daughter, Sevara, has begun. Tara is asked to get Ruslam and his son out of the country, but, as usual, the plan does not go as expected and she is just in the middle when all hell breaks loose.


Ender's game (Orson Scott Card)
Yep, better late than never. I finally read this book and it was ok. Not amazing, not bad, just okay. Great expectations, once more, I guess. I think it is too long. It could have been solved as a short story (originally, I've been told it was just that) and it would not have been a great loss. Still, it was good enough to read the second book in a future. Got it from Amazon some months ago, too. Gifted kid born in a military society in perpetual war against an insectoid race. He is sent to military academy before the usual age (he has been conceived for that reason, too) and has to face jealous students, hard training and tough decisions before he even has facial hair. Plus there are some surprises at the end of the story.

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I'm leaving something out, most likely, but who cares :) And I've just received my copy of Baltimore, from Mignola and Golden. Book Depository, if I ever get my copy of A game of Thrones in time, this is forever :D!