In the 1970s, US soldiers taking leave in Taipei from the Vietnam War runescape gold would go to its cluster of boy-meets-bargirl nightclubs on holidays from the frontlines. They joked that the boisterous pubs were the only fighting they could find in pre-modernized Taiwan.
"Back in those days, just about the only places to go for just drinking were the girlie bars," recalls Dirk Bennett, an American who lived in Taipei for more than 30 years. "So, it was natural for the first pubs to open in this area."
After soldiers faded out with the end of the war, Shuangcheng and the narrow alleys around it have weathered a steep drop in business, noise complaints from residential neighbors and an ill-fated civic effort to reinvent the strip's seedier side.
Instead most of the bars closed, leaving boarded-up holes and just 20 or 30 hardboiled survivors, fewer than half the rs gold former total.
It's no wonder the Shuangcheng bar district is best known as Taipei's combat zone.
But a cluster of cozy yet international neighborhood bars has emerged from the rubble. These are places where hosts and their repeat customers from anywhere in the world take pride in knowing one another's names.
Granted, the seedier side persists in doing combat with customers. Women launch themselves from places such as the Volcano and the Miami Pub at passing men, who if captured may lose US$20 or US$30 buying drinks for them.
But some of the longer lasting tenants of the zone's narrow alleys that come alive around 9 pm are wholesome watering holes where the same crowd of expatriate North Americans, Europeans, Filipinos and Japanese go every week or even every night.
Often just off work, they sit bottle-to-bottle runescape money with locals and the occasional tourist from the Chinese mainland as the zone lights up in neons of all colors and music from the Beatles to disco beats issue from inside.
"Wild it's not. Relaxed it is," said Richard Vuylsteke, a Hong Kong-based business official who visits one of the bars when in Taipei. Barkeepers remember his name from when he lived in town.
"Over the decades the area has shrunk in size and precipitously declined in boisterousness, but it still remains an oasis for expats and locals alike who can find good Taiwanese snack food nearby and share a few beers and relaxed conversation in an economically priced environment," Vuylsteke said.
At My Place, an indoor-outdoor restaurant-pub combo, bartenders chat with solitary drinkers. Across the street at the Manila, the Filipina manager memorizes the orders of repeat customers and keeps the free popcorn coming all evening.
Hosts at one-room bars such as Peace Jazz and Malibu West also make efforts to get to know the customers, even cooking special meal runescape items requests.
"This is a bar where people never get ripped off, never get cheated, no girls you have to buy a drink for. People feel comfortable," said William Gan, manager of the 14-year-old, 58-seat, wood-paneled Malibu West, which is known for its Californian and Mexican foods. "The foreigners, they just keep coming back. They sign their names on the ceiling. We're running out of space up there."
The zone also remains cheap and down-market - the upholstery may be torn or the air-con misses a few spots - compared to bar districts in newer parts of Taipei.
Happy hour beers go for as little as $2.50. Bars that open after 9 pm still allow smoking, a thing of the past elsewhere in town. The music volume increases as the hour gets later, unless crowds are drawn to sports on overhead television screens.
What's left of the zone, which is located just behind the landmark Imperial Hotel, often rages late into the night as repeat customers just repeat and repeat. Crowds fill the friendlier bars on weekdays as well as weekends.
"It is the way we serve customers. That's one reason why they keep on coming," said Jackie Sotelo, floor manager at the ever-packed Manila Bar, where beers are cheap, snacks free and barmaids remember just about runescape accounts everyone's name.
2011年2月28日星期一
2011年2月27日星期日
Hollywood's A-list lights up Oscar red carpet
Hollywood's top stars began their annual runescape gold parade up the red carpet and into the world's top film honors, the Oscars, on Sunday where "The King's Speech" and "the Social Network" will vie for best picture.
The ceremony features two youthful co-hosts, actors James Franco, 32, and Anne Hathaway, 28, marking the first time a man and woman have presided the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences's big night.
Hathaway is the youngest host ever for one of the most-watched TV specials in the United States that also is broadcast live in more than 200 countries worldwide.
She arrived on the carpet in a strapless, red Valentino gown alongside nominees such as Melissa Leo, who is up for best rs gold supporting actress in "The Fighter", and 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld, also nominated for supporting actress in "True Grit," who similarly dazzled fans in glamorous gowns.
Leo chose designer Marc Bouwer to dress her in a structured dress and bold print, and Steinfeld was fashioned by Marchesa in a light pink tea dress that designer Randolph Duke, who was watching events unfold, called "50s redux."
Steinfeld, he said, showed "the perfect balance between being a young girl and a young woman."
Brash comedian Russell Brand, who will present an Oscar, turned up with runescape money his mother. He said Helen Mirren told him to "express myself creatively and not worry about censors" who will be watching the live program for any verbal slip-ups.
Later, A-list stars such as Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem and Colin Firth will parade up the carpet outside the Kodak Theater where Hollywood's biggest event takes place.
Producers say the ceremony, at which 24 awards will be given out in just over three hours, is meant to connect movie fans to the Hollywood of old, while also giving a nod to the future with web cams and Twitter feeds.
THE OSCAR SWEEPSTAKES
Already in the months ahead of Sunday's big awards, a stream of honors have come from industry groups such as the New York Film Critics Circle, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Directors Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild.
Where Oscar is concerned, fans saw "Social Network," which tells of the rise of Facebook from college-oriented website to global runescape items phenomenon, scoop up many early critics awards.
But as the season played out, "The King's Speech," which tells of a stuttering British king facing his personal demons, was embraced by numerous movie professional groups.
Now, the two will face-off for the Oscars with "King's Speech" tipped as the favorite.
Colin Firth, in the starring role of King George VI in "King's Speech," is widely expected to win best actor because he has claimed most honors from both critics and industry groups. Similarly, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, both in boxing drama "The Fighter," are front-runners in supporting categories.
The race for best actress is close between "Black Swan" ballerina Natalie Portman and A-lister Annette Bening playing a lesbian mother with family issues in "The Kids Are All Right." The category of best director is tight between "Facebook" veteran David Fincher and "King's Speech" newcomer Tom Hooper.
Will there be a surprise? Oscar watchers think not.
"It looks as if the front-runners will cross the finish line," said Tom O'Neil, veteran Oscar watcher at awards websites goldderby.com and theenvelope.com.
But anything could happen. As they say in Hollywood, the red carpet is rolled out, the champagne is on ice runescape accounts and the limousines are waiting. It's Oscar time.
2011年2月25日星期五
A dogged Aussie collective lands at the Oscars
The Australian filmmaking collective Blue-Tongue Films runescape power leveling has been around since 1996, when a handful of friends made a short that turned out good enough to warrant persistence.
Next Sunday, they'll enjoy a moment in movies' biggest spotlight: the Academy Awards. Among the nominees of Hollywood veterans and glamorous movie stars is Jacki Weaver, whose supporting actress nod represents not just her fine, disarming performance in David Michod's crime film "Animal Kingdom," but the ascendance of Blue-Tongue films and its tenacious gang of mates.
"We'll all be watching it from wherever we are," says Nash Edgerton, one of the group's founders, speaking from Berlin. "It's a long shot, but awesome that it got that far."
It's been a remarkable year for the seven members of Blue-Tongue, which isn't a production company or a business arrangement of any kind, but a loose group of friends who look to each other for help and inspiration.
Edgerton, a 38-year-old seasoned stuntman of many blockbusters, formed Blue-Tongue with his actor brother, Joel, and Kieran Darcy-Smith — the two of whom had just finished drama school. Their ranks have grown to include Michod, Luke Doolan, Tony Lynch and Spencer Susser, the lone American among the Aussies.
Edgerton's gritty noir "The Square" came out last year to strong reviews. Doolan's short "Miracle Fish" was nominated rs power leveling at last year's Oscars. In April, Susser's "Hesher," a film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman about a heavy-metal drifter that befriends a grieving boy, will be released. Darcy-Smith recently wrapped shooting on his feature directorial debut, "Say Nothing," a psychological thriller.
"It's an incredibly positive time," says Darcy-Smith, speaking from an editing bay in Australia. "There's been a lot of interest. It's opened wider and more international doors. There's a healthy kind of pressure that that brings."
The members of Blue-Tongue are typically scattered across the credits of their films. "Animal Kingdom" was written and directed by Michod, co-starred Joel Edgerton and Darcy-Smith, was edited by Doolan and includes special thanks to Nash Edgerton.
They aren't bound by any aesthetic mantra, but their films do share a gritty realism, particularly in suburban sprawl environs and genre movie templates. They constitute one of the most exciting, hard-earned movements runescape coin in years. Film Comment hailed them as "the Next New Wave."
In "Hesher," a father and son (Rainn Wilson and Devin Brochu) are shocked out of a stupor when a tattooed, often-shirtless maniac (Gordon-Levitt) moves in. Similarly, Blue-Tongue seems to be injecting a dose of energy into movies — a good, deserved smack in the mouth.
"I think the worst thing that anyone can ever say about your work is, `Eh, it was OK,'" says Susser, speaking from Los Angeles where he's prepping the film's release. "You want people to be passionate in one way or the other."
It all started with 1996's 8-minute "Loaded," which proved to the Edgertons and Darcy-Smith that they — despite having no film school training — could succeed.
"It just inspired us to keep playing, and we found that we played together well," says Darcy-Smith. "We were bouncing ideas off each other. There rs2 items was a great collaborative spirit. We're also all really good mates. ... We've become, really, family."
Shorts have remained the group's training ground, a way to get their names out there, prove themselves capable to investors and get familiarized with directing. Doolan and both Edgertons recently completed new shorts, including one by Nash, "Bear," that's a sequel to his darkly comic "Spider," which was paired theatricallywith "The Square."
"Everyone is continuing to keep it up, keep the ball in the air," says Edgerton, who's currently writing a script for a film he expects to be bigger in scope than "The Square."
More than anything, Blue-Tongue functions like a support system. They share each other's scripts, seeking constructive feedback. When one succeeds, it only makes the others more confident that they might, too.
"It was never something we talked about," says Susser. "It was this group of friends that liked making films — kind of our hobby."
Susser, 33, fell in with the Edgertons while they were all working on "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones." Though he grew up in California, he counts himself as a "wannabe Aussie." He filmed his short "I Love Sarah Jane" in Australia, and is working a script of a buy runescape gold feature-length adaptation.
Blue-Tongue's kinship is partly based on their shared interest in portraying emotional authenticity — whether it comes in a crime drama like "Animal Kingdom" or a Zombie film like "Sarah Jane."
"I really like stuff that's honest," says Susser. "Whether it's fantasy or crazy or really silly, I like stuff that feels grounded. I feel like we all have that in common."
It's an inspiring tale: a group of filmmakers, thousands of miles from Hollywood, striving for years to build themselves into feature film directors, many of them arriving with their first movies at once.
"After years and years and years of plugging away at home and getting into a lot of debt," says Darcy-Smith. "It's great now that it's finally come to what I always thought it would: a film."
With movies in the pipeline and scripts in the works, Blue-Tongue may be just getting started.
"I'm keen to see what everyone does with a little more money and doing something a little bit bigger," says Edgerton. "Now, at least, some cheap runescape gold people will return our call."
2011年2月24日星期四
First round bids come in for Warner Music assets
Several parties have started runescape gold putting in bids for parts or all of Warner Music Group, the world's third largest music company, sources said on Tuesday.
The bidders, who have had a preliminary review of Warner Music's books, include private equity firms, investor groups and strategic bidders like music companies.
Names that have moved ahead in the process include private equity firm KKR through its BMG Music Rights joint venture with Bertelsmann. Others include billionaire Len Blavatnik, who already owns around 2 percent of Warner Music. Vivendi's Universal Music Group and Sony Corp's label group Sony Music Entertainment rs gold and its song publishing joint venture Sony/ATV Publishing are also said to have moved ahead in pursuing their interest.
More official bids are expected this week.
The bids for Warner Music come even as investors are watching out for the next move from Citigroup which took control of rival music company EMI Music last month and is expected to soon put it up for sale.
Most industry watchers see the possibility of both companies being up for sale as a competitive situation which could reduce the respective sellers' bargaining power.
Warner Music Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman is also keeping an runescape money eye on the EMI process with the view that his company might in fact end up buying assets of EMI. One scenario could see Warner Music sell its Warner/Chappell song publishing unit and raise enough cash to buy all of EMI.
"They're trying to move closer to pole position to get more financial flexibility to be able to compete with some of the private equity guys who are interested in EMI's assets," said Standard & Poor's Tuna Amobi.
Warner Music has more than $2 billion of debt on its balance sheet and has seen its operating income growth slow down significantly in recent quarters as runescape items music sales continue to shrink across the industry.
"The amount of additional leverage they would need to make a bid for all of EMI would be challenging," said Amobi.
But another scenario could see Warner Music's assets ending up being sold to whoever ends up buying EMI.
The number of possibilities highlights the overall weakness and runescape accounts upheaval in the music industry.
The bidders, who have had a preliminary review of Warner Music's books, include private equity firms, investor groups and strategic bidders like music companies.
Names that have moved ahead in the process include private equity firm KKR through its BMG Music Rights joint venture with Bertelsmann. Others include billionaire Len Blavatnik, who already owns around 2 percent of Warner Music. Vivendi's Universal Music Group and Sony Corp's label group Sony Music Entertainment rs gold and its song publishing joint venture Sony/ATV Publishing are also said to have moved ahead in pursuing their interest.
More official bids are expected this week.
The bids for Warner Music come even as investors are watching out for the next move from Citigroup which took control of rival music company EMI Music last month and is expected to soon put it up for sale.
Most industry watchers see the possibility of both companies being up for sale as a competitive situation which could reduce the respective sellers' bargaining power.
Warner Music Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman is also keeping an runescape money eye on the EMI process with the view that his company might in fact end up buying assets of EMI. One scenario could see Warner Music sell its Warner/Chappell song publishing unit and raise enough cash to buy all of EMI.
"They're trying to move closer to pole position to get more financial flexibility to be able to compete with some of the private equity guys who are interested in EMI's assets," said Standard & Poor's Tuna Amobi.
Warner Music has more than $2 billion of debt on its balance sheet and has seen its operating income growth slow down significantly in recent quarters as runescape items music sales continue to shrink across the industry.
"The amount of additional leverage they would need to make a bid for all of EMI would be challenging," said Amobi.
But another scenario could see Warner Music's assets ending up being sold to whoever ends up buying EMI.
The number of possibilities highlights the overall weakness and runescape accounts upheaval in the music industry.
2011年2月23日星期三
Around the Web: Simple Steps to Happiness
There are plenty of spots around the rs power leveling web to turn to if you need a mood boost. Here are a few of our favorite websites that deal with happiness and how to find it.
Remember the pure, unadulterated joy of eating an ice-cream sundae oozing with hot fudge, chopped nuts, and fluffy clouds of whipped cream, with not one, but two Maraschino cherries on top?
Kids have such simple pleasures: Ice cream. A pony ride. The bumper cars at Six Flags. But as you get older, it takes a lot more to make you happy, and you start to wonder how to slip back into those innocent days before you’d ever heard of root canals or mortgages, when the most pressing matters on your mind were winning the Little League game and learning the multiplication table up to ten.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a time machine for you—but if happiness is what you’re after, there are plenty of spots around buying runescape gold the Internet to find tips on getting the most out of life.
Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention ourselves here—after all, what could make you happier than receiving good news in your mailbox every morning?—but if you still want more, we’ll fill you in on a few great sites that specialize in positive thinking. Here are a few of our favorites.
The Happiness Project
If you read our article “Come On, Get Happy!” a couple of months ago, you already know what writer Gretchen Rubin’s been up to. But if not, you’ll want to check out her blog, The Happiness Project. Rubin has dedicated a full year of her life to following every last piece of advice on happiness that she can find and recording her successes and failures alike. A book about her happiness project was published in 2010, but you can find happiness-related life tips, quotes, and other bons mots on her site every day. Don’t miss her tip sheet on ways to boost your energy in just ten minutes or this beautiful quote on happiness from runescape coin the Dalai Lama.
Zen Habits
Another star of the blogosphere, Zen Habits is chock-full of great articles on achieving happiness, health, and productivity and simplifying your life. In the blog, Leo Baubauta, a married man with six children who lives in Guam, shares his insights into human behavior and self-improvement with well-written articles on topics such as “Unproductivity: 8 Ways to Make the Most of Your Laziest Days” or “75 Simple Pleasures to Brighten Your Day.” Be sure to stop in every Thursday, for the blog’s special happiness-themed articles—but it’s well worth making this valuable blog an everyday stop during your time online.
The Chief Happiness Officer
For some of us, it’s easy to be happy when we’re hanging out at home. But the horrors of work are another story. Fortunately, Alexander Kjerulf is here to change all that: Kjerulf is a master consultant in the field of bringing joy to the workplace and has a blog called The Chief Happiness Officer, where he shares his wisdom on getting rs2 items comfortable in the cubicle on a near-daily basis. For a few great tips on feeling good, check out Kjerulf’s advice on using teamwork to beat stress and his tips on how to find a job you’ll love. Follow his advice, and who knows? Soon you may find yourself looking forward to your morning commute.
A Few More Great Sites on HappinessThe University of Pennsylvania offers the world’s only Master of Applied Positive Psychology program, focusing on the science of feeling good. Check out the happiness questionnaires and other great resources on the program’s site.
If you’re in your middle years, you won’t want to miss all the great articles and resources at LifeTwo, a site that can help you avoid the dreaded midlife crisis and transition gracefully through the ages.
The blog may be called Dumb Little Man, but the advice is some of the wisest you’ll find. For tips on organization, productivity, and self-improvement cheapest runescape gold of all varieties, this is the place to look.
Remember the pure, unadulterated joy of eating an ice-cream sundae oozing with hot fudge, chopped nuts, and fluffy clouds of whipped cream, with not one, but two Maraschino cherries on top?
Kids have such simple pleasures: Ice cream. A pony ride. The bumper cars at Six Flags. But as you get older, it takes a lot more to make you happy, and you start to wonder how to slip back into those innocent days before you’d ever heard of root canals or mortgages, when the most pressing matters on your mind were winning the Little League game and learning the multiplication table up to ten.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a time machine for you—but if happiness is what you’re after, there are plenty of spots around buying runescape gold the Internet to find tips on getting the most out of life.
Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention ourselves here—after all, what could make you happier than receiving good news in your mailbox every morning?—but if you still want more, we’ll fill you in on a few great sites that specialize in positive thinking. Here are a few of our favorites.
The Happiness Project
If you read our article “Come On, Get Happy!” a couple of months ago, you already know what writer Gretchen Rubin’s been up to. But if not, you’ll want to check out her blog, The Happiness Project. Rubin has dedicated a full year of her life to following every last piece of advice on happiness that she can find and recording her successes and failures alike. A book about her happiness project was published in 2010, but you can find happiness-related life tips, quotes, and other bons mots on her site every day. Don’t miss her tip sheet on ways to boost your energy in just ten minutes or this beautiful quote on happiness from runescape coin the Dalai Lama.
Zen Habits
Another star of the blogosphere, Zen Habits is chock-full of great articles on achieving happiness, health, and productivity and simplifying your life. In the blog, Leo Baubauta, a married man with six children who lives in Guam, shares his insights into human behavior and self-improvement with well-written articles on topics such as “Unproductivity: 8 Ways to Make the Most of Your Laziest Days” or “75 Simple Pleasures to Brighten Your Day.” Be sure to stop in every Thursday, for the blog’s special happiness-themed articles—but it’s well worth making this valuable blog an everyday stop during your time online.
The Chief Happiness Officer
For some of us, it’s easy to be happy when we’re hanging out at home. But the horrors of work are another story. Fortunately, Alexander Kjerulf is here to change all that: Kjerulf is a master consultant in the field of bringing joy to the workplace and has a blog called The Chief Happiness Officer, where he shares his wisdom on getting rs2 items comfortable in the cubicle on a near-daily basis. For a few great tips on feeling good, check out Kjerulf’s advice on using teamwork to beat stress and his tips on how to find a job you’ll love. Follow his advice, and who knows? Soon you may find yourself looking forward to your morning commute.
A Few More Great Sites on HappinessThe University of Pennsylvania offers the world’s only Master of Applied Positive Psychology program, focusing on the science of feeling good. Check out the happiness questionnaires and other great resources on the program’s site.
If you’re in your middle years, you won’t want to miss all the great articles and resources at LifeTwo, a site that can help you avoid the dreaded midlife crisis and transition gracefully through the ages.
The blog may be called Dumb Little Man, but the advice is some of the wisest you’ll find. For tips on organization, productivity, and self-improvement cheapest runescape gold of all varieties, this is the place to look.
2011年2月22日星期二
The 10 most irritating parenting tips ever
I have nothing against friends and family offering runescape gold advice when you come to them with a dilemma. It's the people who pipe up, unbidden, because they see you with a child and assume you have no idea what you're doing. Too often these people are elderly great-aunts. Fortunately those ladies are afraid of the Internet, so I can rail against them and they'll be none the wiser! Thanks, ladies.
1. "Sleep now, because once that baby comes you'll never sleep again." Technically this is a pregnancy tip, of course, but I'm shoving it in here anyway. Yes, Great-Aunt Hildy, I will sleep throughout my entire third trimester. Because I am part bear.
2. "Sleep when the baby sleeps." Everyone gives you runescape power leveling this one — annoying relatives, pediatricians, the cashier at the drugstorewhere you were buying newborn diapers. Are these people all robots, capable of instantly dropping off to sleep whenever their child is unconscious? Do they not have other things to do, like bathe, or simply relish the rare moments of silence you get when you have an infant?
3. "I think your baby's hungry." Whether you're nursing or bottle-feeding, everyone assumes you don't know how to feed your child. And every time your child cries, whines, grimaces, or squirms, they are going to assume you are starving your poor baby and you need reminders to feed it. Lest you forget! This advice is especially maddening when they turn out to be correct.
4. "Relish every moment of your baby's first years, because they'll be grown before you know it." You mean, time only moves forward? I had no idea! I thought we'd be like this forever and ever! This sort of advice, obvious and innocuous as it seems, always put me on cheap runescape money the defensive, as if I had just been carrying my baby under my arm like a football, muttering, "Grow up already, why don't you. Just GROW UP."
5. "I hope you're sleep training that child. Do you WANT him to be spoiled?" Oh, distant relative/person whose aisle I shared at the supermarket, I'm so glad you know exactly my child needs. And that you know, from your years of scientific research, that any child not allowed to cry it out will be a horrible waste of flesh! (See #6 for this parenting tip's counterpart.)
6. "I hope you're not doing that 'crying it out' thing. It's so barbaric. Enjoy your baby all through the night!" Again, kudos to you, whoever you rs power leveling are, for knowing what's best for our unique family situation! I will be calling you at 4 a.m., so you can enjoy our baby as well.
7. "Why are you bringing your child outside when it's so cold out?" It never ceased to amaze me that, no matter what my child's age, total strangers will express alarm and revulsion that I dared expose him to the elements. "And WHY ISN'T BE WEARING MITTENS? He's going to get consumption!"
8. "Your child isn't really sad/angry/injured. He's just manipulating you." There's no doubt that children can push our buttons as if they've had professional training in it, but the notion that my kid's authentic feelings are in fact manufactured to elicit a reaction really chaps my hide. If that were always true, he'd be a rs gold pint-sized sociopath. I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
9. "Schools are just glorified prisons. If you loved your child, you'd homeschool." Oh, if only I loved my child enough to abandon my livelihood, tear him away from the community he so enjoys, separate him from the professionals who have dedicated their careers to childhood education, and forced him to stay home all day with me, where we'd be at each other's throats for hours! If only! Please note: I am not opposed to homeschooling, at all — in fact I wish it would work for us, but it would not.
10. "If I were you, I'd just—" OH NO YOU DON'T. I know where this is going. Listen, unnamed distant acquaintance who last parented in the 19th century (it's true — I often get my unwanted advice from ghosts) you don't know diddly about my kid, and our relationship, and what runescape accounts works for us.
1. "Sleep now, because once that baby comes you'll never sleep again." Technically this is a pregnancy tip, of course, but I'm shoving it in here anyway. Yes, Great-Aunt Hildy, I will sleep throughout my entire third trimester. Because I am part bear.
2. "Sleep when the baby sleeps." Everyone gives you runescape power leveling this one — annoying relatives, pediatricians, the cashier at the drugstorewhere you were buying newborn diapers. Are these people all robots, capable of instantly dropping off to sleep whenever their child is unconscious? Do they not have other things to do, like bathe, or simply relish the rare moments of silence you get when you have an infant?
3. "I think your baby's hungry." Whether you're nursing or bottle-feeding, everyone assumes you don't know how to feed your child. And every time your child cries, whines, grimaces, or squirms, they are going to assume you are starving your poor baby and you need reminders to feed it. Lest you forget! This advice is especially maddening when they turn out to be correct.
4. "Relish every moment of your baby's first years, because they'll be grown before you know it." You mean, time only moves forward? I had no idea! I thought we'd be like this forever and ever! This sort of advice, obvious and innocuous as it seems, always put me on cheap runescape money the defensive, as if I had just been carrying my baby under my arm like a football, muttering, "Grow up already, why don't you. Just GROW UP."
5. "I hope you're sleep training that child. Do you WANT him to be spoiled?" Oh, distant relative/person whose aisle I shared at the supermarket, I'm so glad you know exactly my child needs. And that you know, from your years of scientific research, that any child not allowed to cry it out will be a horrible waste of flesh! (See #6 for this parenting tip's counterpart.)
6. "I hope you're not doing that 'crying it out' thing. It's so barbaric. Enjoy your baby all through the night!" Again, kudos to you, whoever you rs power leveling are, for knowing what's best for our unique family situation! I will be calling you at 4 a.m., so you can enjoy our baby as well.
7. "Why are you bringing your child outside when it's so cold out?" It never ceased to amaze me that, no matter what my child's age, total strangers will express alarm and revulsion that I dared expose him to the elements. "And WHY ISN'T BE WEARING MITTENS? He's going to get consumption!"
8. "Your child isn't really sad/angry/injured. He's just manipulating you." There's no doubt that children can push our buttons as if they've had professional training in it, but the notion that my kid's authentic feelings are in fact manufactured to elicit a reaction really chaps my hide. If that were always true, he'd be a rs gold pint-sized sociopath. I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
9. "Schools are just glorified prisons. If you loved your child, you'd homeschool." Oh, if only I loved my child enough to abandon my livelihood, tear him away from the community he so enjoys, separate him from the professionals who have dedicated their careers to childhood education, and forced him to stay home all day with me, where we'd be at each other's throats for hours! If only! Please note: I am not opposed to homeschooling, at all — in fact I wish it would work for us, but it would not.
10. "If I were you, I'd just—" OH NO YOU DON'T. I know where this is going. Listen, unnamed distant acquaintance who last parented in the 19th century (it's true — I often get my unwanted advice from ghosts) you don't know diddly about my kid, and our relationship, and what runescape accounts works for us.
2011年2月17日星期四
Spanish Harlem Orchestra celebrates Grammys
When Spanish Harlem Orchestra runescape gold snagged its second Grammy award, it was a victory for the old school salsa sound over tough competition from Latin music's new guard.
Bandleader Oscar Hernandez — who has worked with such salsa greats as Ray Barretto and Cuban singer Celia Cruz — said Monday that the win venerates the traditional "salsa dura" sound that for years has taken a back seat to the more commercial "salsa romantica."
"The music speaks for itself," Hernandez said by telephone from Los Angeles. "It's high energy and high quality ... Some people consider it old guard or a museum piece. But other people relish it and rs power leveling see the beauty of it."
The album's name "Viva la Tradicion," says it all. By winning the best Latin tropical album category, it knocked out such heavyweights as Puerto Rico's El Gran Combo, Gilberto Santa Rosa and Dominican merengue star Juan Luis Guerra — who won album of the year at the Latin Grammys in November.
"I'm sure a lot of people will take notice and say 'Who are these guys?' We've built our fan base little by little, hopefully this will help it grow even more," said the 56-year-old Hernandez.
Actually, the decade-old New York-based band runescape items for sale had quite a run at the Grammys: Each of its four studio album have earned a Grammy nomination.
In 2005, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra beat out salsa superstar Marc Anthony to win what then best salsa/merengue album for "Across 110th Street," which included guest spots by Rueben Blades.
The 13-member band specializes in a hard-driving brand of salsa that reigned in the 1960s and '70s, but has since been displaced by crooners who sing a softer brand of salsa.
When Cruz and Tito Puente died, Hernandez said the big Latin radio stations had to rush out and buy their music so they could play it, because they didn't own copies of the old records anymore.
"I hope this could be an impetus to keep this kind of music alive," said Hernandez. "The salsa on commercial radio is not good music, it's not representative of what this music is. It's been forgotten over the last 15 years, and people have been latching on to reggaeton and pop salsa. It's runescape power leveling an uphill struggle."
Bandleader Oscar Hernandez — who has worked with such salsa greats as Ray Barretto and Cuban singer Celia Cruz — said Monday that the win venerates the traditional "salsa dura" sound that for years has taken a back seat to the more commercial "salsa romantica."
"The music speaks for itself," Hernandez said by telephone from Los Angeles. "It's high energy and high quality ... Some people consider it old guard or a museum piece. But other people relish it and rs power leveling see the beauty of it."
The album's name "Viva la Tradicion," says it all. By winning the best Latin tropical album category, it knocked out such heavyweights as Puerto Rico's El Gran Combo, Gilberto Santa Rosa and Dominican merengue star Juan Luis Guerra — who won album of the year at the Latin Grammys in November.
"I'm sure a lot of people will take notice and say 'Who are these guys?' We've built our fan base little by little, hopefully this will help it grow even more," said the 56-year-old Hernandez.
Actually, the decade-old New York-based band runescape items for sale had quite a run at the Grammys: Each of its four studio album have earned a Grammy nomination.
In 2005, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra beat out salsa superstar Marc Anthony to win what then best salsa/merengue album for "Across 110th Street," which included guest spots by Rueben Blades.
The 13-member band specializes in a hard-driving brand of salsa that reigned in the 1960s and '70s, but has since been displaced by crooners who sing a softer brand of salsa.
When Cruz and Tito Puente died, Hernandez said the big Latin radio stations had to rush out and buy their music so they could play it, because they didn't own copies of the old records anymore.
"I hope this could be an impetus to keep this kind of music alive," said Hernandez. "The salsa on commercial radio is not good music, it's not representative of what this music is. It's been forgotten over the last 15 years, and people have been latching on to reggaeton and pop salsa. It's runescape power leveling an uphill struggle."
2011年2月16日星期三
Lifetime Achievement Award: Ramones
Sire Records Founder Seymour Stein cheap runescape powerleveling on 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award recipients Ramones and their pioneering punk rock
In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, The Recording Academy presents Special Merit Awards recognizing contributions of significance to the recording field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical GRAMMY Award. Each year, The Academy invites friends and colleagues of Special Merit Awards recipients to pay tribute to the honorees' career accomplishments, while also adding colorful anecdotes and personal accounts. In the days leading up to the 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards, GRAMMY.com will present the tributes to the 12 Special Merit Awards recipients for 2011.
Being head of Sire Records, which turns 45 in 2011, I was responsible for all artists, and as hard as it was not to show favoritism, for the most part I succeeded. It was hardest with the Ramones, partly because soon after I signed them their manager Danny Fields asked my wife Linda to be his partner. It was harder rs gold still because I admired the band's total dedication to their music, despite the fact that selling millions of records eluded them throughout their career.
With Linda as their co-manager, the Ramones knew my every move. One Sunday within 10 minutes of returning from a 10-day trip to London, I received a call from Johnny. "Seymour, we got some great songs, ya know, we want you to hear 'em, ya know."
I said, "Great, just got home. Come in anytime you want on Tuesday."
"No, we want you to hear 'em live, ya know, and we know you're not doing anything Wednesday night, ya know, so we booked ourselves into CBGBs."
That evening proved monumental. The opening act was supposed to be the Shirts. I had seen them many times before and was standing outside the club with Lenny Kaye.
The opening act goes on and I hear a screeching voice: "When my love, stands next to your love…" and all of a sudden as I'm sucked into CBGBs, I say, "That's not the Shirts." Lenny says, "No, they got another gig, that's the Talking Heads."
Armed with the Ramones and Talking Heads, amid the buzz building around the Bowery and CBGB, Sire finally got the distribution deal I always wanted with runescape money Warner Bros. Records, where we have been for the past 35 years.
Thank you Johnny. Oh yes, and thank you Joey, thank you Tommy, and thank you Dee Dee.
Over the years I can't tell you how many artists were lured to Sire by the Ramones, and yes, also Talking Heads.
The Ramones made it seem easy and as such were an inspiration to bands as varied as U2, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Pearl Jam, the Offspring, Mot?rhead, Metallica, the Undertones, the Strokes, Bad Religion, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, and many others.
I remember when we first brought the Ramones to London back in 1976. Members of the Clash and Sex Pistols, both only semiprofessional at the time, attended the second show and it was said both bands turned pro right after that.
According to Danny Fields, Johnny Ramone asked the Clash's bass player Paul Simonon, "Are you in a band?" Paul said, "Well, we just rehearse. We call ourselves the Clash, but we are not good enough." Johnny said, "Wait 'til you see us. We stink, we're lousy, we can't play. Just get out there and do it."
Joey Ramone had the biggest heart ever and was always trying to help new acts. Last runescape items time we spoke, two weeks before he died, Joey called to tell me he had just sent a new band's CD.
Bono once said at a Madison Square Garden gig, "We love New York City…New York City has given us a lot of things, but the best thing it ever gave us was a punk rock group called the Ramones, without whom a lot of people would have never gotten started; certainly us!"
Eddie Vedder might have set a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame record by speaking for more than 20 minutes when he inducted the Ramones back in 2002. "The Ramones didn't need Mohawks to be punk. They're visually aggressive. They were four working-class, construction-worker delinquents from Forest Hills, Queens, who were armed with two-minute songs that they rattled off like machine-gun fire. And it was enough to change the Earth's revolution."
I've been to Beijing twice this past year to check out China's emerging punk music scene. There is a club called D-22, reminiscent of CBGB, and aspiring young bands like Carsick Cars, P.K. 14 and Rustic are carrying on the tradition, further proof the Ramones' music is truly global and will endure forever.
(As founder of Sire Records, Seymour Stein signed the Ramones, Talking Heads, Pretenders, Madonna — all of whom have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — Depeche Mode, Echo And The Bunnymen, Ice-T, the Replacements, the Smiths, k.d. lang, Erasure, the Cult, the Cure, Seal, the Undertones, and Barenaked Ladies, among many others, to the label. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.)
The Lifetime Achievement Award, established in 1962, is presented by vote of The Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording. To view a complete list of cheapest runescape gold Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, click here.
2011年2月15日星期二
Train's 'Soul Sister' gets some early Grammy love
Train, who had one of the year's top runescape gold songs with "Soul Sister" but found themselves shut out of contention for song or album of the year, got a major consolation prize Sunday as they took home a trophy for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals for the live version of their ubiquitous song.
"Thanks Justin Bieber for not being a duo or group," said joked frontman Pat Monahan in the trio's acceptance speech. "Soul Sister" was ineligible for contention in other categories because it had been released in advance of the eligibility requirements.
The award was sandwiched between two over-the-top performances — a tribute to an ailing diva and a gay-pride statement by a new one.
Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson, Martina McBride, best new artist nominee Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, and gospel singer Yolanda Adams gave their soulful, riffing best in an ear-popping tribute to a recovering Aretha Franklin that kicked off the show.
The Queen of Soul, who had surgery for an undisclosed ailment late last year, made her first televised appearance before a national audience. Dressed in white, a healthy looking Franklin thanked well-wishers for their prayers and cards in a taped segment: "I wish that I could have been with you all tonight, but since I couldn't, next year."
That performance was followed shortly afterward by a typically over-the-top runescape money one by Lady Gaga. She debuted her new anthem "Born This Way" by being "born": She appeared out of an "Alien"-looking cocoon and seemed to transform into Madonna, circa 1987, as she pranced through the uptempo song, the first off her upcoming album.
With the performance-heavy show, it was easy to forget that actual awards were being given out. Jay-Z and John Legend were the early leaders, as both were awarded three trophies each during the show's pre-telecast ceremony, where the bulk of the 109 Grammy trophies were given out.
Other multiple winners included Usher, Lady Antebellum, Lady Gaga, Jeff Beck and the Black Keys, who all won two apiece.
Eminem was the leading nominee with 10, but his chance of a huge Grammy sweep was diminished as he lost five of the awards in the pre-telecast ceremony. He still picked up one — best rap solo performance, for "Not Afraid."
Gospel legend Mavis Staples was a tearful winner as she picked up the first Grammy of her career, for best Americana album, for "You Are Not Alone."
"That was the shock of my life. My runescape accounts goodness. It's been a long time, a long time coming," she said, breaking into tears.
Neil Young also won his first musical Grammy (he had won for best boxed box set in 2009). "I'm not Mavis, but I'm close," he joked, as he held his trophy for best rock song for "Angry World."
Other notable early winners included Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Cee Lo Green and Danger Mouse, who won producer of the year.
Eminem still had a chance to win the top awards of the evening, including the elusive (for him) album of the year category. But the gifted and twisted rapper might get tripped up by some fierce competition, including a song that rivals him for coarseness — Green's "(Expletive) You," which is in competition with Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie," featuring Rihanna, in the record and song of the year categories.
Eminem's "Recovery" was 2010's best-selling album and a favorite to win in the album category. It marked a major comeback for the rapper, considered one of the greatest but who had been addled by a prescription drug addiction and critical malaise in recent years. It is the third time he's been nominated for album of the year; he's lost twice before.
But he also faces tough competition in the category, from the likes of Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" and Lady Gaga's "The Fame Monster." Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" and Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" are also nominated.
The live telecast will feature the top nominees, like record of the year. "Need You Now" is nominated in both song and the record of the year categories. Other nominees for record of the year include Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind," the New York native's anthem for his city featuring Alicia Keys, and rapper B.o.B's "Nothin' On You," with a runescape money melodious hook courtesy of Bruno Mars.
"Thanks Justin Bieber for not being a duo or group," said joked frontman Pat Monahan in the trio's acceptance speech. "Soul Sister" was ineligible for contention in other categories because it had been released in advance of the eligibility requirements.
The award was sandwiched between two over-the-top performances — a tribute to an ailing diva and a gay-pride statement by a new one.
Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson, Martina McBride, best new artist nominee Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, and gospel singer Yolanda Adams gave their soulful, riffing best in an ear-popping tribute to a recovering Aretha Franklin that kicked off the show.
The Queen of Soul, who had surgery for an undisclosed ailment late last year, made her first televised appearance before a national audience. Dressed in white, a healthy looking Franklin thanked well-wishers for their prayers and cards in a taped segment: "I wish that I could have been with you all tonight, but since I couldn't, next year."
That performance was followed shortly afterward by a typically over-the-top runescape money one by Lady Gaga. She debuted her new anthem "Born This Way" by being "born": She appeared out of an "Alien"-looking cocoon and seemed to transform into Madonna, circa 1987, as she pranced through the uptempo song, the first off her upcoming album.
With the performance-heavy show, it was easy to forget that actual awards were being given out. Jay-Z and John Legend were the early leaders, as both were awarded three trophies each during the show's pre-telecast ceremony, where the bulk of the 109 Grammy trophies were given out.
Other multiple winners included Usher, Lady Antebellum, Lady Gaga, Jeff Beck and the Black Keys, who all won two apiece.
Eminem was the leading nominee with 10, but his chance of a huge Grammy sweep was diminished as he lost five of the awards in the pre-telecast ceremony. He still picked up one — best rap solo performance, for "Not Afraid."
Gospel legend Mavis Staples was a tearful winner as she picked up the first Grammy of her career, for best Americana album, for "You Are Not Alone."
"That was the shock of my life. My runescape accounts goodness. It's been a long time, a long time coming," she said, breaking into tears.
Neil Young also won his first musical Grammy (he had won for best boxed box set in 2009). "I'm not Mavis, but I'm close," he joked, as he held his trophy for best rock song for "Angry World."
Other notable early winners included Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Cee Lo Green and Danger Mouse, who won producer of the year.
Eminem still had a chance to win the top awards of the evening, including the elusive (for him) album of the year category. But the gifted and twisted rapper might get tripped up by some fierce competition, including a song that rivals him for coarseness — Green's "(Expletive) You," which is in competition with Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie," featuring Rihanna, in the record and song of the year categories.
Eminem's "Recovery" was 2010's best-selling album and a favorite to win in the album category. It marked a major comeback for the rapper, considered one of the greatest but who had been addled by a prescription drug addiction and critical malaise in recent years. It is the third time he's been nominated for album of the year; he's lost twice before.
But he also faces tough competition in the category, from the likes of Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" and Lady Gaga's "The Fame Monster." Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" and Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" are also nominated.
The live telecast will feature the top nominees, like record of the year. "Need You Now" is nominated in both song and the record of the year categories. Other nominees for record of the year include Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind," the New York native's anthem for his city featuring Alicia Keys, and rapper B.o.B's "Nothin' On You," with a runescape money melodious hook courtesy of Bruno Mars.
2011年2月14日星期一
2nd Grammy trip for Grupo Fantasma
The Latin funk orchestra Grupo Fantasma runescape accounts might just be one of the least-known acts up for a Grammy this weekend, although it's a second-time nominee.
But their famous collaborators, from Prince to indie rockers Spoon to pioneering salsa pianist Larry Harlow, know their work well.
After 10 years of steady touring and recording, the fiercely independent, Austin, Texas-based band has won a following among discerning Latin music fans for their funky take on older music styles such as cumbia, salsa and norteno.
Grupo Fantasma's 2008 album, "Sonidos Gold," featured guest spots by Harlow and saxophonist Maceo Parker, best known as James Brown's favorite horn player. The album created a buzz and garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Rock, Alternative or Urban Album.
For last year's follow-up, "El Existential," the band rented a tiny house, transformed it into a ramshackle recording studio and spent a few months experimenting with new sounds and homemade instruments. Harlow again plays on a song, as does the Meat Puppets' Kurt Kirkwood.
When "El Existential" garnered the band a second Grammy nomination for the same runescape gold category, it came as a surprise, said guitarist and producer Adrian Quesada, 33, who spoke while on a tour of the Southwest that led up to Sunday's Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.
The 11-piece band, which has sold about three-quarters of its records at its shows, takes nothing for granted, he said.
"We've never been trendy," said Quesada, a University of Texas at Austin graduate who began his professional life as a graphic designer. "When we first started we had not planned it out beyond playing gigs, getting drunk and making a little money, and then doing it again next weekend. But what we ended up creating was something new and special, and we could not really imagine that 10 years down the runescape money road we'd have this success."
Cathy Ragland, an ethnomusicologist at University of Texas Pan American and an expert on border music, said she hears various influences in the band's pan-Latin sound, from cumbia mixed with deep funk to salsa with a reggae bass drop. She includes Grupo Fantasma in a wave of border bands with U.S. born players, including non-Latinos, who have been influenced by Mexican cumbia DJs in clubs frequented by immigrants.
Quesada didn't imagine as a kid growing up in Laredo, Texas, that he would make a career out of playing Latin music set to mostly Spanish lyrics, though like most of the band members he grew up near the border, had family in Mexico and was surrounded by Mexican music. Traditional Latin music was for his grandparents, he thought, but things changed when he got to college.
That's when he began listening to Colombian cumbia big bands on the Discos Fuentes label, Fania Records salsa stars like Harlow and Willie Colon, and Latin rocker Carlos Santana, as well as '70s funk.
Grupo Fantasma formed out of two college bands and, with a base in the musical hotbed buy ffxiv gil of Austin, began playing the city's massive South by Southwest festival and public television's Austin City Limits.
With a sound that defied category and a growing number of members who needed to make a living, the band knew it was taking a risk by ignoring interest from major labels and industry types who tried to steer them in a more commercial direction.
"Everyone said what we're doing was wrong, we needed to do this or that, to make ourselves more contemporary, to add hip-hop or whatever, but we stuck to what we were doing and in the long run it paid off, though there were times we thought it might not," Quesada said.
A fellow Austin band, Spoon, helped by putting the band's horn section on its 2007 album "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga."
A big break came when Prince invited the band to play with him at his now defunct Las Vegas club, where Grupo Fantasma became a fixture, and at parties after the runescape money Golden Globes and the Super Bowl. When Prince appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," he brought Grupo Fantasma players to back him up.
Grupo Fantasma has self-produced all four of its studio albums, working with labels only to get help with distribution. The band funded "El Existential" entirely on its own but decided to sign a distribution deal with Nat Geo Music, the National Geographic Society's new world music label. The Grammy nomination is the label's first.
After a decade of working almost nonstop, Quesada isn't showing any signs of slowing down. His next release will be the first from a new project called The Echocentrics, due out this spring on Thievery Corporation's label, Eighteenth Street Music. Vocals will be sung in English, Spanish and Portuguese by Tita Lima of Brazil and Natalia Clavier of Argentina.
That will be followed by the fourth album by Ocote Soul Sounds, a collaboration of Quesada and Martin Perna, founder of Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra.
Later this year, Grupo's mostly instrumental alter ego, Brownout, whose lineup is drawn from the larger band, will release its third album. Brownout's debut album, Homenaje, earned acclaim both in the U.S. and in U.K., and the bands have toured Europe.
"We like to try different things and it's good for us musically," Quesada said. "It keeps us from getting ffxiv power leveling burnt out playing the same music all the time."
But their famous collaborators, from Prince to indie rockers Spoon to pioneering salsa pianist Larry Harlow, know their work well.
After 10 years of steady touring and recording, the fiercely independent, Austin, Texas-based band has won a following among discerning Latin music fans for their funky take on older music styles such as cumbia, salsa and norteno.
Grupo Fantasma's 2008 album, "Sonidos Gold," featured guest spots by Harlow and saxophonist Maceo Parker, best known as James Brown's favorite horn player. The album created a buzz and garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Rock, Alternative or Urban Album.
For last year's follow-up, "El Existential," the band rented a tiny house, transformed it into a ramshackle recording studio and spent a few months experimenting with new sounds and homemade instruments. Harlow again plays on a song, as does the Meat Puppets' Kurt Kirkwood.
When "El Existential" garnered the band a second Grammy nomination for the same runescape gold category, it came as a surprise, said guitarist and producer Adrian Quesada, 33, who spoke while on a tour of the Southwest that led up to Sunday's Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.
The 11-piece band, which has sold about three-quarters of its records at its shows, takes nothing for granted, he said.
"We've never been trendy," said Quesada, a University of Texas at Austin graduate who began his professional life as a graphic designer. "When we first started we had not planned it out beyond playing gigs, getting drunk and making a little money, and then doing it again next weekend. But what we ended up creating was something new and special, and we could not really imagine that 10 years down the runescape money road we'd have this success."
Cathy Ragland, an ethnomusicologist at University of Texas Pan American and an expert on border music, said she hears various influences in the band's pan-Latin sound, from cumbia mixed with deep funk to salsa with a reggae bass drop. She includes Grupo Fantasma in a wave of border bands with U.S. born players, including non-Latinos, who have been influenced by Mexican cumbia DJs in clubs frequented by immigrants.
Quesada didn't imagine as a kid growing up in Laredo, Texas, that he would make a career out of playing Latin music set to mostly Spanish lyrics, though like most of the band members he grew up near the border, had family in Mexico and was surrounded by Mexican music. Traditional Latin music was for his grandparents, he thought, but things changed when he got to college.
That's when he began listening to Colombian cumbia big bands on the Discos Fuentes label, Fania Records salsa stars like Harlow and Willie Colon, and Latin rocker Carlos Santana, as well as '70s funk.
Grupo Fantasma formed out of two college bands and, with a base in the musical hotbed buy ffxiv gil of Austin, began playing the city's massive South by Southwest festival and public television's Austin City Limits.
With a sound that defied category and a growing number of members who needed to make a living, the band knew it was taking a risk by ignoring interest from major labels and industry types who tried to steer them in a more commercial direction.
"Everyone said what we're doing was wrong, we needed to do this or that, to make ourselves more contemporary, to add hip-hop or whatever, but we stuck to what we were doing and in the long run it paid off, though there were times we thought it might not," Quesada said.
A fellow Austin band, Spoon, helped by putting the band's horn section on its 2007 album "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga."
A big break came when Prince invited the band to play with him at his now defunct Las Vegas club, where Grupo Fantasma became a fixture, and at parties after the runescape money Golden Globes and the Super Bowl. When Prince appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," he brought Grupo Fantasma players to back him up.
Grupo Fantasma has self-produced all four of its studio albums, working with labels only to get help with distribution. The band funded "El Existential" entirely on its own but decided to sign a distribution deal with Nat Geo Music, the National Geographic Society's new world music label. The Grammy nomination is the label's first.
After a decade of working almost nonstop, Quesada isn't showing any signs of slowing down. His next release will be the first from a new project called The Echocentrics, due out this spring on Thievery Corporation's label, Eighteenth Street Music. Vocals will be sung in English, Spanish and Portuguese by Tita Lima of Brazil and Natalia Clavier of Argentina.
That will be followed by the fourth album by Ocote Soul Sounds, a collaboration of Quesada and Martin Perna, founder of Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra.
Later this year, Grupo's mostly instrumental alter ego, Brownout, whose lineup is drawn from the larger band, will release its third album. Brownout's debut album, Homenaje, earned acclaim both in the U.S. and in U.K., and the bands have toured Europe.
"We like to try different things and it's good for us musically," Quesada said. "It keeps us from getting ffxiv power leveling burnt out playing the same music all the time."
2011年2月13日星期日
Box office preview: Audiences to 'Just Go With It'
Since 1995's "Billy Madison," Adam runescape gold Sandler has been as consistent a box office draw as any star working today. This weekend's debut of Sony Pictures' "Just Go With It" will continue that trend with an expected $30 million in North American ticket sales.
And beyond the traditional weekend, the film will also see a solid Monday gross with Valentine's couples making a romantic date with Sandler and co-star Jennifer Aniston.
Beyond that, let's just say that 11 Sandler films have earned over $100 million at the domestic box office and that his lifetime domestic revenue total is over $2 billion.
Three other wide-release openers will round out the top four slots this weekend with runescape money a rare G-rated 3-D match up of Disney's animated "Gnomeo and Juliet" and Paramount's music documentary "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," both likely to post solid debuts in the mid to high teens and even perhaps sneak into the low $20 million range.
"Gnomeo" will benefit from a dearth of family fare in the marketplace that has propelled Disney's "Tangled" and Warner Bros.' "Yogi Bear" to better-than-expected revenue totals. And Bieber fever will be in full swing, with teen girls proving once again they can be a powerful force at the box office runescape accounts as they come out to support their music idol and probably make him a movie star.
In a weekend filled with newcomers, "The Eagle" from Focus Features will land in just over 2,000 theatres and a projected gross in the $8 million to $10 million range. The period adventure set in Roman-ruled Britain stars "Dear John's" Channing Tatum and will draw fans of epics such as "Gladiator," "300" and "Clash of the Titans."
Completing the top five lineup will be last week's No. 1 film, Sony-Screen Gems' "The Roommate," which will bank somewhere between $6 million and $8 million for the Valentine's weekend. Yet another profit-maker for Screen Gems, the film earned back its production budget in its first three days of release and looks to gather a total domestic gross of over $20 million by buy ffxiv gil Sunday night.
And beyond the traditional weekend, the film will also see a solid Monday gross with Valentine's couples making a romantic date with Sandler and co-star Jennifer Aniston.
Beyond that, let's just say that 11 Sandler films have earned over $100 million at the domestic box office and that his lifetime domestic revenue total is over $2 billion.
Three other wide-release openers will round out the top four slots this weekend with runescape money a rare G-rated 3-D match up of Disney's animated "Gnomeo and Juliet" and Paramount's music documentary "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," both likely to post solid debuts in the mid to high teens and even perhaps sneak into the low $20 million range.
"Gnomeo" will benefit from a dearth of family fare in the marketplace that has propelled Disney's "Tangled" and Warner Bros.' "Yogi Bear" to better-than-expected revenue totals. And Bieber fever will be in full swing, with teen girls proving once again they can be a powerful force at the box office runescape accounts as they come out to support their music idol and probably make him a movie star.
In a weekend filled with newcomers, "The Eagle" from Focus Features will land in just over 2,000 theatres and a projected gross in the $8 million to $10 million range. The period adventure set in Roman-ruled Britain stars "Dear John's" Channing Tatum and will draw fans of epics such as "Gladiator," "300" and "Clash of the Titans."
Completing the top five lineup will be last week's No. 1 film, Sony-Screen Gems' "The Roommate," which will bank somewhere between $6 million and $8 million for the Valentine's weekend. Yet another profit-maker for Screen Gems, the film earned back its production budget in its first three days of release and looks to gather a total domestic gross of over $20 million by buy ffxiv gil Sunday night.
2011年2月11日星期五
Lady Gaga sets high bar for 'Born This Way'
At the MTV Video Music Awards in runescape gold September 2010, Lady Gaga owned the night. Her music video for "Bad Romance" scooped up several awards including video of the year and Gaga also claimed a moonman for collaborating with Beyonce on "Telephone," reported Entertainment Weekly. Because of her amazing success that night and her love for her fans or "Little Monsters," Lady Gaga decided to treat viewers to a few acapella lines of her next single, "Born This Way."
Since this first announcement containing both the lead single from her new album and the title track, Lady Gaga has issued several other tweets and facebook messages concerning "Born This Way." The success or failure of of the single compared to Gaga's track record will determine if this saturation of information prior to runescape money release was a brilliant social media strategy or extreme overkill for all but the most devout of "Monsters."
Brag This Way
As noted above, "Born This Way" was first introduced as Gaga's next single at the VMAs. After this initial public offering, Gaga has mentioned the song or answered questions about it and her next album on multiple occasions. As one might expect from a performer with the natural ability and confidence of Lady Gaga, she has repeatedly established a very high bar for the album. MTV reported Gaga as stating "the album is the absolute greatest work I have ever done," and that the album will consist of "a lot of hit records that will piss people off." Considering the massive success previous Gaga releases "The Fame" and "The Fame Monster" received, it runescape accounts will take more than a meat dress to back up those words.
Tweet This Way
As a New Year's gift to her Monsters, Lady Gaga tweeted a bare-bottomed picture of herself wearing a jacket with the words "Born This Way" across the back. In this tweet Gaga stated the official single release date of February 13, 2011 and an album release date of May 23, 2011. Because of previous hype, one could have presumed that Gaga would now be mum on "Born This Way" until February 13th, but she was not. On January 27th, 2011, Lady Gaga used the TwitLonger service to link the full lyrics of "Born This Way" to her fans.
At first glance, the lyrics to "Born This Way" seem like a slightly more blunt version of any song telling people to be themselves despite what others think. Based on this and the bit of overkill that has already went in to promoting the song, "Born This Way" is going to need a bumping dance beat and exceedingly catchy phraseology to become the "sing-with-Gaga" sensations buy ffxiv gil that "Poker Face" and "Bad Romance" were.
Since this first announcement containing both the lead single from her new album and the title track, Lady Gaga has issued several other tweets and facebook messages concerning "Born This Way." The success or failure of of the single compared to Gaga's track record will determine if this saturation of information prior to runescape money release was a brilliant social media strategy or extreme overkill for all but the most devout of "Monsters."
Brag This Way
As noted above, "Born This Way" was first introduced as Gaga's next single at the VMAs. After this initial public offering, Gaga has mentioned the song or answered questions about it and her next album on multiple occasions. As one might expect from a performer with the natural ability and confidence of Lady Gaga, she has repeatedly established a very high bar for the album. MTV reported Gaga as stating "the album is the absolute greatest work I have ever done," and that the album will consist of "a lot of hit records that will piss people off." Considering the massive success previous Gaga releases "The Fame" and "The Fame Monster" received, it runescape accounts will take more than a meat dress to back up those words.
Tweet This Way
As a New Year's gift to her Monsters, Lady Gaga tweeted a bare-bottomed picture of herself wearing a jacket with the words "Born This Way" across the back. In this tweet Gaga stated the official single release date of February 13, 2011 and an album release date of May 23, 2011. Because of previous hype, one could have presumed that Gaga would now be mum on "Born This Way" until February 13th, but she was not. On January 27th, 2011, Lady Gaga used the TwitLonger service to link the full lyrics of "Born This Way" to her fans.
At first glance, the lyrics to "Born This Way" seem like a slightly more blunt version of any song telling people to be themselves despite what others think. Based on this and the bit of overkill that has already went in to promoting the song, "Born This Way" is going to need a bumping dance beat and exceedingly catchy phraseology to become the "sing-with-Gaga" sensations buy ffxiv gil that "Poker Face" and "Bad Romance" were.
2011年2月10日星期四
Popularity increases aggression in kids
Previous studies showed that aggression runescape gold makes kids more popular, but a new study suggests that becoming more popular makes kids more aggressive.
To determine the link between popularity and aggression, researchers at the University of California, Davis examined surveys involving about 3,700 students. The surveys asked the students about their friendships as well as whom they picked on and who picked on them. The surveys' questions concerned both physical aggression and relationship aggression such as name- calling and ostracism.
After controlling for variables known to influence aggression, including dating activity, sports participation, grade-point average, socioeconomic status and physical development, the researchers found that students who were more central in their social networks were also more aggressive.
Network centrality is a bit more complex than popularity: It means that a kid has not only runescape money a lot of friends, but a lot of friends who are also socially prominent. These school-age movers and shakers have a lot of social power among their peers, lead researcher Bob Faris said in remarks published by LiveScience.com on Tuesday.
"For the most part, we find that status increases aggression," Faris told LiveScience.
"For some people, that will be a surprise. For other people who have grown up quoting 'Mean Girls,' it might be an 'Oh, duh' kind of revelation," he added, referring to the 2004 comedy about a clique of vicious but popular high school girls.
In the study, Faris and his colleagues not only examined individual traits, but also social networks where bullying takes place, using data from a long-term study of runescape accounts public school children in three counties in North Carolina, according to LiveScience.com.
Their approach is different from many previous studies on kid aggression which only focused on the traits of bullies and their victims. These studies suggested that bullies often have troubled family lives and may be at higher risk for depression and other mental health disorders. Their victims are often unpopular.
The gradual increase of aggression with popularity continues until one reaches the top two percent of popular students, Faris said. At that point, aggression suddenly drops off. The top two percent are even less aggressive than the kids at the very bottom of the heap, Faris said.
"We can't preclude the possibility that kids at the very top are just somehow really different, that they're incredibly nice and everybody loves them," Faris said. But other evidence suggests that these extremely popular kids are just secure enough in their positions that they don't need to be aggressive buy ffxiv gil anymore, he said.
To determine the link between popularity and aggression, researchers at the University of California, Davis examined surveys involving about 3,700 students. The surveys asked the students about their friendships as well as whom they picked on and who picked on them. The surveys' questions concerned both physical aggression and relationship aggression such as name- calling and ostracism.
After controlling for variables known to influence aggression, including dating activity, sports participation, grade-point average, socioeconomic status and physical development, the researchers found that students who were more central in their social networks were also more aggressive.
Network centrality is a bit more complex than popularity: It means that a kid has not only runescape money a lot of friends, but a lot of friends who are also socially prominent. These school-age movers and shakers have a lot of social power among their peers, lead researcher Bob Faris said in remarks published by LiveScience.com on Tuesday.
"For the most part, we find that status increases aggression," Faris told LiveScience.
"For some people, that will be a surprise. For other people who have grown up quoting 'Mean Girls,' it might be an 'Oh, duh' kind of revelation," he added, referring to the 2004 comedy about a clique of vicious but popular high school girls.
In the study, Faris and his colleagues not only examined individual traits, but also social networks where bullying takes place, using data from a long-term study of runescape accounts public school children in three counties in North Carolina, according to LiveScience.com.
Their approach is different from many previous studies on kid aggression which only focused on the traits of bullies and their victims. These studies suggested that bullies often have troubled family lives and may be at higher risk for depression and other mental health disorders. Their victims are often unpopular.
The gradual increase of aggression with popularity continues until one reaches the top two percent of popular students, Faris said. At that point, aggression suddenly drops off. The top two percent are even less aggressive than the kids at the very bottom of the heap, Faris said.
"We can't preclude the possibility that kids at the very top are just somehow really different, that they're incredibly nice and everybody loves them," Faris said. But other evidence suggests that these extremely popular kids are just secure enough in their positions that they don't need to be aggressive buy ffxiv gil anymore, he said.
2011年2月9日星期三
Geek Culture Will Never Die...or Be Popular
I'm going to let you in on a runescape gold secret. There is no thin line between geek culture and pop culture. There's a big, thick wall between the two. Every so often, someone fires a harpoon through that wall. A comic book movie becomes popular, or a video game makes waves in the media, or a Web site becomes the newest craze, and the harpoon hooked onto a nice chunk of geek culture and pulls it through to the pop culture side.
Then the wall is spackled over and the geek culture on the pop culture side is eaten up and forgotten about. Then, ironically, the wall is covered with posters like ads for G4's Attack of the Show, proclaiming oxymoronically "pop culture geeks unite!" and announcements from CNN that geek culture is now a big part of pop culture.
No matter how hard media outlets try to make the concept catch on, no matter how many studios try to capitalize on the cultural waves of comic book movies and million-selling video games, there is no such thing as pop culture geekdom. There is only the small amount of bleed-through that happens when that harpoon punches through the wall.
Last December, comedian Patton Oswalt wrote in Wired a treatise on the decay and necessary death of geek culture. He wrote that geek culture has become diluted, co-opted, and bastardized, and that if it wants to flourish again as a sub-culture, it needs to die and come back.
I sympathize with him, but I also completely disagree. Geek culture isn't dead. It's just hidden behind that huge wall.
Geek culture is defined by both depth and obscurity of the subject. Do you play D&D? You're starting at being a geek. Do you have a bookshelf full of D20 system manuals? You're a pretty solid runescape money geek. Do you play Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, and Paranoia on top of D&D? Now we're reaching some really respectable geek levels. Meanwhile, all any non-geeks know about role-playing games is D&D. For some, it's the stereotypical impression of the pastime. For others, it's the gateway activity that leads to deeper, stranger, geekier activities. We're not in danger (or hope) of the non-geek masses suddenly cracking jokes about ultraviolent clearance and serving The Computer. Nor do I really expect anyone reading this to get that reference.
Role-playing games aren't exactly accessible to many, so let's look at comic book movies, a sub-genre of film that has experienced a surprising resurgence over the last few years, even when the comic book industry itself has been shaky. Everyone saw Iron Man and 300. Many people saw V for Vendetta. Plenty of people saw Watchmen. Not nearly enough people saw Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Of all those people, how many do you think even realize that 300 and V for Vendetta are based on comic books? Or that Batman Begins is based partly on Frank Miller (300)'s Batman: Year One? How many readers went on to explore the works of Neil Gaiman, or Warren Ellis, or Garth Ennis?
Going the slightest bit beyond the direct source materials of these movies, mass interest in comics drops like a stone. Viewers of V for Vendetta and Watchmen didn't exactly clamor to read all the Alan Moore material they could find, based on the movies. For the vast majority, V for Vendetta and runescape accounts Watchmen, both seminal graphic novels and literary works of the 80s, started and stopped at the silver screen. Few, if any, searched for Moore's other work, like Swamp Thing, or Tom Strong, or Top Ten, or (god forbid) The Lost Girls. Granted, it didn't help that Moore distanced himself from all cinematic adaptations of his work (and after League of Extraordinary Gentleman, no one on the planet can blame him), but it probably wouldn't have changed the fleeting interest in the material, and not the source and context of the material. Like Dungeons & Dragons, these popular comic book movies are a flicker of geek culture across the face of popular culture, like a light shining briefly through a hole in a wall.
Even video games, now a huge part of popular entertainment, are not immune from the massive barrier between geek culture and pop culture. When most people think about video games, they think about a handful of big names, either new and super-popular series like Call of Duty, Madden, and Halo, or decades-old and archetypical properties like Mario and Sonic. Most gaming publications make a distinction between "casual gamers" (fans of easily accessible, readily available games like Bejeweled and Farmville) and "hardcore gamers," (fans of games that actually come on discs and cost $60 a pop), but they ignore the distinction between "hardcore gamers" and "bro gamers."
Bro gamers aren't geeks, because their knowledge of video games start and end at Madden and Halo. There is little interest for old-school games, retro games, imported games, or even just genre games. Bro gamers (the video game equivalent of "pop culture geeks" ignore 90% of the shelves at Gamestop or the listings on Amazon but get wicked stoked at the newest Grand Theft Auto. Few of them have tried Saint's Row 2, never mind different-genre games like Dead Space, Fallout: New Vegas, or Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3. Fortunately, video games have become so popular as an industry that it's one of the few cases where ff14 gil even obscure titles have gained legitimacy and some form of "post-geek" status. Comic book and role-playing game stores retain the stigma of geek, but Gamestop is a corner-store brand now, thanks to video games' growth into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Of course, if you start talking about how much you love the latest SMT game or whinge about how Mother 3 won't come to the US, you'll still probably get reactions similar to the face a dog makes when you show him a card trick.
Finally, let's look at the PC in PCMag.com: computers. It's arguably the biggest case of the "un-geeking" or a subject, and yet it perfectly shows how it remains the case. Computer use has grown from a niche activity among math nerds and engineers into something everyone does as a simple aspect of modern life. However, even computer use is only embraced on the surface for the vast majority of people. These days anyone can get online, chat with friends, Tweet, use Facebook, and perform many other activities on their computers. How many of those people could tell you what the different components are if they cracked open the cases of those computers? How many could replace their CPU, or graphics card, or even build a new computer from scratch? Of those, how many go to the extra trouble of setting up bay busses, water blocks, SLI graphics card setups, and CPU overclocking? Everyone knows how ffxiv gil to use a computer on a basic level, but only a few out of every hundred or thousand really understand its inner workings,
or care to learn. And there is the line between a computer user and a geek, just as thick and obvious as the line between a pop culture fan and a geek.
Geek culture requires not just enthusiasm, but depth and scope. Those latter two characteristics are why geekdom will never be truly co-opted by popular culture. Every media, every activity, ever genre and sub-genre and sub-sub-genre has so much variety and depth that you just can't cover it in a news report, or a water-cooler chat, or even a two-hour show on G4. You can scrape off the shiniest bits and pretend they represent the entire thing, but in the end, you're still just getting a tiny speck of what geek culture is. As long as there are small stores, small presses, and boundless enthusiasm for the most specific things, geek culture will remain both safe and alienating.
On the bright side, we have the Internet now, so even if your local friends don't care about your hobbies of collecting Generation One Transformers or the works of Takashi Miike, you can safely assume that there are at least half a dozen message boards and Web sites populated with thousands of fans. And those people, my buy ffxiv gil friends, are true geeks. And yes, I am one of them.
Then the wall is spackled over and the geek culture on the pop culture side is eaten up and forgotten about. Then, ironically, the wall is covered with posters like ads for G4's Attack of the Show, proclaiming oxymoronically "pop culture geeks unite!" and announcements from CNN that geek culture is now a big part of pop culture.
No matter how hard media outlets try to make the concept catch on, no matter how many studios try to capitalize on the cultural waves of comic book movies and million-selling video games, there is no such thing as pop culture geekdom. There is only the small amount of bleed-through that happens when that harpoon punches through the wall.
Last December, comedian Patton Oswalt wrote in Wired a treatise on the decay and necessary death of geek culture. He wrote that geek culture has become diluted, co-opted, and bastardized, and that if it wants to flourish again as a sub-culture, it needs to die and come back.
I sympathize with him, but I also completely disagree. Geek culture isn't dead. It's just hidden behind that huge wall.
Geek culture is defined by both depth and obscurity of the subject. Do you play D&D? You're starting at being a geek. Do you have a bookshelf full of D20 system manuals? You're a pretty solid runescape money geek. Do you play Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, and Paranoia on top of D&D? Now we're reaching some really respectable geek levels. Meanwhile, all any non-geeks know about role-playing games is D&D. For some, it's the stereotypical impression of the pastime. For others, it's the gateway activity that leads to deeper, stranger, geekier activities. We're not in danger (or hope) of the non-geek masses suddenly cracking jokes about ultraviolent clearance and serving The Computer. Nor do I really expect anyone reading this to get that reference.
Role-playing games aren't exactly accessible to many, so let's look at comic book movies, a sub-genre of film that has experienced a surprising resurgence over the last few years, even when the comic book industry itself has been shaky. Everyone saw Iron Man and 300. Many people saw V for Vendetta. Plenty of people saw Watchmen. Not nearly enough people saw Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Of all those people, how many do you think even realize that 300 and V for Vendetta are based on comic books? Or that Batman Begins is based partly on Frank Miller (300)'s Batman: Year One? How many readers went on to explore the works of Neil Gaiman, or Warren Ellis, or Garth Ennis?
Going the slightest bit beyond the direct source materials of these movies, mass interest in comics drops like a stone. Viewers of V for Vendetta and Watchmen didn't exactly clamor to read all the Alan Moore material they could find, based on the movies. For the vast majority, V for Vendetta and runescape accounts Watchmen, both seminal graphic novels and literary works of the 80s, started and stopped at the silver screen. Few, if any, searched for Moore's other work, like Swamp Thing, or Tom Strong, or Top Ten, or (god forbid) The Lost Girls. Granted, it didn't help that Moore distanced himself from all cinematic adaptations of his work (and after League of Extraordinary Gentleman, no one on the planet can blame him), but it probably wouldn't have changed the fleeting interest in the material, and not the source and context of the material. Like Dungeons & Dragons, these popular comic book movies are a flicker of geek culture across the face of popular culture, like a light shining briefly through a hole in a wall.
Even video games, now a huge part of popular entertainment, are not immune from the massive barrier between geek culture and pop culture. When most people think about video games, they think about a handful of big names, either new and super-popular series like Call of Duty, Madden, and Halo, or decades-old and archetypical properties like Mario and Sonic. Most gaming publications make a distinction between "casual gamers" (fans of easily accessible, readily available games like Bejeweled and Farmville) and "hardcore gamers," (fans of games that actually come on discs and cost $60 a pop), but they ignore the distinction between "hardcore gamers" and "bro gamers."
Bro gamers aren't geeks, because their knowledge of video games start and end at Madden and Halo. There is little interest for old-school games, retro games, imported games, or even just genre games. Bro gamers (the video game equivalent of "pop culture geeks" ignore 90% of the shelves at Gamestop or the listings on Amazon but get wicked stoked at the newest Grand Theft Auto. Few of them have tried Saint's Row 2, never mind different-genre games like Dead Space, Fallout: New Vegas, or Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3. Fortunately, video games have become so popular as an industry that it's one of the few cases where ff14 gil even obscure titles have gained legitimacy and some form of "post-geek" status. Comic book and role-playing game stores retain the stigma of geek, but Gamestop is a corner-store brand now, thanks to video games' growth into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Of course, if you start talking about how much you love the latest SMT game or whinge about how Mother 3 won't come to the US, you'll still probably get reactions similar to the face a dog makes when you show him a card trick.
Finally, let's look at the PC in PCMag.com: computers. It's arguably the biggest case of the "un-geeking" or a subject, and yet it perfectly shows how it remains the case. Computer use has grown from a niche activity among math nerds and engineers into something everyone does as a simple aspect of modern life. However, even computer use is only embraced on the surface for the vast majority of people. These days anyone can get online, chat with friends, Tweet, use Facebook, and perform many other activities on their computers. How many of those people could tell you what the different components are if they cracked open the cases of those computers? How many could replace their CPU, or graphics card, or even build a new computer from scratch? Of those, how many go to the extra trouble of setting up bay busses, water blocks, SLI graphics card setups, and CPU overclocking? Everyone knows how ffxiv gil to use a computer on a basic level, but only a few out of every hundred or thousand really understand its inner workings,
or care to learn. And there is the line between a computer user and a geek, just as thick and obvious as the line between a pop culture fan and a geek.
Geek culture requires not just enthusiasm, but depth and scope. Those latter two characteristics are why geekdom will never be truly co-opted by popular culture. Every media, every activity, ever genre and sub-genre and sub-sub-genre has so much variety and depth that you just can't cover it in a news report, or a water-cooler chat, or even a two-hour show on G4. You can scrape off the shiniest bits and pretend they represent the entire thing, but in the end, you're still just getting a tiny speck of what geek culture is. As long as there are small stores, small presses, and boundless enthusiasm for the most specific things, geek culture will remain both safe and alienating.
On the bright side, we have the Internet now, so even if your local friends don't care about your hobbies of collecting Generation One Transformers or the works of Takashi Miike, you can safely assume that there are at least half a dozen message boards and Web sites populated with thousands of fans. And those people, my buy ffxiv gil friends, are true geeks. And yes, I am one of them.
2011年2月8日星期二
'Roommate' earns top box-office bunk with $15.6M
The college thriller "The Roommate" has runescape accounts moved into the top spot at the box office with a $15.6 million debut during a typically slow Super Bowl weekend in which the NFL championship game preoccupies movie fans.
The Sony release features Leighton Meester as a psycho freshman who becomes obsessed with her new roomie (Minka Kelly).
The 3-D underwater cave adventure "Sanctum," whose producers include "Avatar" creator James Cameron, drew modest crowds and came in second with $9.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Released by Universal, "Sanctum" is a survival story about explorers trapped underground in flooded caves during a monster storm.
The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, Anthony Hopkins' exorcism thriller "The Rite," fell steeply to sixth-place with $5.6 million. The Warner Bros. release raised its 10-day total to $23.7 million.
Revenue estimates were off sharply on Sunday as football fans gave movies a pass in favor of the big game. Even without the Super Bowl, though, it was another sleepy weekend at theaters, with overall business runescape gold down for the 13th-straight weekend compared to last year, when Cameron's 3-D sensation "Avatar" still was riding high.
"I think Hollywood would be crying right now were it not for the `Avatar' excuse. It really was an anomaly how well that film was doing in January and February last year," said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com.
This weekend's receipts came in at $86 million, down 25 percent from the same weekend in 2010, according to Hollywood.com. A year ago, the weekend was led by "Dear John" in first-place with $30.5 million and "Avatar" in second with $22.9 million, a huge number for a film that runescape money already had been in theaters for nearly two months.
More in Entertainment
The New Royals: Insight on Prince William & Kate Middleton's wedding
Full coverage of the royal wedding on Yahoo! News
Complete entertainment coverageLargely because of "Avatar," overall revenues so far this year are running 24 percent behind 2010's.
Still, Sony was happy with the results for "The Roommate," which nearly earned back its $16 million production budget over opening weekend.
Though trashed by critics, the movie gave room for a showy performance from "Gossip Girl" co-star Meester as the wacko roommate.
"She really goes for it," said Rory Bruer, Sony's head of distribution. "Crazy and ff14 gil beautiful. It kind of works for her."
"Sanctum" brought in spare change compared to the billions of "Avatar," though its opening weekend went a long way toward recouping the $12 million that Universal and partner Relativity Media paid for its distribution rights.
And the studio was happy to be in business with Cameron, a pioneer in digital 3-D production.
"Anybody working with this man, you have to revel in the opportunity," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal.
While Hollywood is off to a slow start in 2011, the industry still could have a record year for revenue once a huge lineup of late-spring and summer blockbusters arrive, Dergarabedian said.
Last year was front-loaded with "Avatar," but business slowed through much of the summer and fall.
"The long shadow of `Avatar' will start diminishing pretty soon," Dergarabedian said.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
Starbucks sees higher 2011 coffee costs buy ffxiv gil but won't raise.
The Sony release features Leighton Meester as a psycho freshman who becomes obsessed with her new roomie (Minka Kelly).
The 3-D underwater cave adventure "Sanctum," whose producers include "Avatar" creator James Cameron, drew modest crowds and came in second with $9.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Released by Universal, "Sanctum" is a survival story about explorers trapped underground in flooded caves during a monster storm.
The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, Anthony Hopkins' exorcism thriller "The Rite," fell steeply to sixth-place with $5.6 million. The Warner Bros. release raised its 10-day total to $23.7 million.
Revenue estimates were off sharply on Sunday as football fans gave movies a pass in favor of the big game. Even without the Super Bowl, though, it was another sleepy weekend at theaters, with overall business runescape gold down for the 13th-straight weekend compared to last year, when Cameron's 3-D sensation "Avatar" still was riding high.
"I think Hollywood would be crying right now were it not for the `Avatar' excuse. It really was an anomaly how well that film was doing in January and February last year," said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com.
This weekend's receipts came in at $86 million, down 25 percent from the same weekend in 2010, according to Hollywood.com. A year ago, the weekend was led by "Dear John" in first-place with $30.5 million and "Avatar" in second with $22.9 million, a huge number for a film that runescape money already had been in theaters for nearly two months.
More in Entertainment
The New Royals: Insight on Prince William & Kate Middleton's wedding
Full coverage of the royal wedding on Yahoo! News
Complete entertainment coverageLargely because of "Avatar," overall revenues so far this year are running 24 percent behind 2010's.
Still, Sony was happy with the results for "The Roommate," which nearly earned back its $16 million production budget over opening weekend.
Though trashed by critics, the movie gave room for a showy performance from "Gossip Girl" co-star Meester as the wacko roommate.
"She really goes for it," said Rory Bruer, Sony's head of distribution. "Crazy and ff14 gil beautiful. It kind of works for her."
"Sanctum" brought in spare change compared to the billions of "Avatar," though its opening weekend went a long way toward recouping the $12 million that Universal and partner Relativity Media paid for its distribution rights.
And the studio was happy to be in business with Cameron, a pioneer in digital 3-D production.
"Anybody working with this man, you have to revel in the opportunity," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal.
While Hollywood is off to a slow start in 2011, the industry still could have a record year for revenue once a huge lineup of late-spring and summer blockbusters arrive, Dergarabedian said.
Last year was front-loaded with "Avatar," but business slowed through much of the summer and fall.
"The long shadow of `Avatar' will start diminishing pretty soon," Dergarabedian said.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
Starbucks sees higher 2011 coffee costs buy ffxiv gil but won't raise.
2011年2月7日星期一
Cruz, Bardem baby boy 'doing great
Oscar-winning Spanish film stars runescape gold Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have had their first child, a healthy baby boy, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.
"Penelope and Javier welcomed their first son into their family last week. Both parents and baby are doing great," said the spokeswoman for Cruz, confirming Spanish press reports.
Cruz gave birth at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills on Saturday, according to the latest edition of the Spanish celebrity magazine Hola!
It published pictures of a beaming Bardem and family members of Cruz at the center, the hospital of choice for Hollywood stars. But it gave no details on the boy's name or his birth weight.
Spokespeople for Cruz and Bardem had so far refused to comment on the Spanish press reports since they emerged Tuesday.
The birth came just three days before Bardem received his third Academy Award nomination, for runescape money his performance in the film "Biutiful" by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Cruz, 36, and Bardem, 41, met when they starred opposite each other as lusty teens in the Spanish film "Jamon, Jamon," back in 1992.
In 2008, they were back together on the silver screen in Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," for which Cruz won an Academy Award as best supporting actress.
The couple married in July last year at a ceremony in the Bahamas.
Bardem, also nominated for an Oscar in "Before Night Falls" (2000), won an Academy Award in 2007 for his role in "No Country for Old Men."
Spain's leading daily, El Pais, quoted runescape accounts a family source as saying "the couple want to have as much privacy as possible."
"Friends of Bardem began to suspect (the baby was born) when the actor did not respond to any calls to congratulate him on his (Oscar) nomination," it added.
Bardem changed his work schedule to be at his wife's side for the birth, the paper said.
Hola! said Cruz's mother, Encarna, sister Monica -- also an actress -- and her brother Eduardo were at Cedars-Sinai for the birth.
Bardem's mother, well-known Spanish actress Pilar Bardem, traveled from Madrid on Monday to meet her grandson, according to the magazine.
The actors had kept their romance quiet for years, but Bardem got personal when he won a best actor award at the Cannes film festival in May for his role in "Biutiful."
"I share the joy of this prize with my friend, my companion, my love, Penelope Cruz," Bardem said at the time.
"I owe you so much, and I love you very much," he added, drawing tears from Cruz, a longtime muse of buy ffxiv gil Spanish director Pedro Almodovar.
"Penelope and Javier welcomed their first son into their family last week. Both parents and baby are doing great," said the spokeswoman for Cruz, confirming Spanish press reports.
Cruz gave birth at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills on Saturday, according to the latest edition of the Spanish celebrity magazine Hola!
It published pictures of a beaming Bardem and family members of Cruz at the center, the hospital of choice for Hollywood stars. But it gave no details on the boy's name or his birth weight.
Spokespeople for Cruz and Bardem had so far refused to comment on the Spanish press reports since they emerged Tuesday.
The birth came just three days before Bardem received his third Academy Award nomination, for runescape money his performance in the film "Biutiful" by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Cruz, 36, and Bardem, 41, met when they starred opposite each other as lusty teens in the Spanish film "Jamon, Jamon," back in 1992.
In 2008, they were back together on the silver screen in Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," for which Cruz won an Academy Award as best supporting actress.
The couple married in July last year at a ceremony in the Bahamas.
Bardem, also nominated for an Oscar in "Before Night Falls" (2000), won an Academy Award in 2007 for his role in "No Country for Old Men."
Spain's leading daily, El Pais, quoted runescape accounts a family source as saying "the couple want to have as much privacy as possible."
"Friends of Bardem began to suspect (the baby was born) when the actor did not respond to any calls to congratulate him on his (Oscar) nomination," it added.
Bardem changed his work schedule to be at his wife's side for the birth, the paper said.
Hola! said Cruz's mother, Encarna, sister Monica -- also an actress -- and her brother Eduardo were at Cedars-Sinai for the birth.
Bardem's mother, well-known Spanish actress Pilar Bardem, traveled from Madrid on Monday to meet her grandson, according to the magazine.
The actors had kept their romance quiet for years, but Bardem got personal when he won a best actor award at the Cannes film festival in May for his role in "Biutiful."
"I share the joy of this prize with my friend, my companion, my love, Penelope Cruz," Bardem said at the time.
"I owe you so much, and I love you very much," he added, drawing tears from Cruz, a longtime muse of buy ffxiv gil Spanish director Pedro Almodovar.
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