It's not a joke, it's country So we are, through some odd coincidence of fates, blessed with a TV in our room (something rather out of the ordinary among residents, since we're not paying for it and apparently it normally costs 12 Euros a month to rent). One of the channels we happen to get is Viva, a German VH1 equivalent, and being that our other options are CNN, one French channel and six or seven Spanish channels (none of which show anything particularly interesting for people who don't speak English), we've been watching a whole lot of it.

As a result, I've suddenly been introduced (and when I say introduced, I mean "I've watched these same videos about 15 times over") to quite a bit of German music, some of which is pretty damn cool.

One particular oddity, though -- and this is a shockingly popular group for some reason that totally escapes me -- is Texas Lightning, a German "country" group composed of an American woman and four very, very German guys who... uh... yeah, perform country songs. In English. And are top-rated in several charts in Germany, and were Germany's representative in the Eurovision contest. WTF, Germans?

Some artists/songs/videos that I've kinda (in some cases, to my own shock) grown to like, though:

- Lafee - Virus
- Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
- Bob Sinclair - Love Generation
- Rosenstolz - Ich bin Ich (This song has a very cute video)
- Tobias Regner - I Still Burn (I just think this song is silly)
- Seeed - Ding (Most. Bizarre. Music Video. Ever. Really needs to be seen to be believed.)
- Rapsoul - Gott schenk ihr Flügel (German rap is cool)
- Oomph! - Gott ist ein Popstar (uh, yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like)

And there are a few more I can't recall offhand (like one fun song that's all about Cinderella). European videos are so much fun. :D I won't even get started on the commercials...  ¶ 13:09 2 Comments Links to this post

  Barcelona, catchup edition (part one) So I started this post a week ago, but then Dima managed to shut my browser with the post half-written and I haven't been able to recover from the associated depression and post again until now. I've been doing a pretty woeful job of keeping up, hence catch-up.

Touristy destinations visited in Barcelona so far:
- Park Guell, which was all sorts of awesome. I spent close to half a day there and could easily have spent more. Aside from the neat architecture throughout (and it's a rather large park), there are numerous trails to explore, and one can get really neat views of Barcelona from a number of places at the park. Of what I've seen so far, this was my favorite place. Oh, and it doesn't cost anything to get in, either.
- Casa Milà (La Pedrera), which, while also quite interesting, did not really blow me away. The building has been converted into a museum, with the attic focused on Gaudi and a (rather plain) hall on the bottom levels used for traveling expositions. The particular exposition we attended happened to be of works by Ukranian painter Kasimir Malevich, whose work I must admit to not understanding an iota. His most famous painting (lauded by art critics: "after 1910, he proceeded by means of successive illuminations...to the supreme enlightenment of the black square surrounded by white") is pretty pointless as far as I can tell. But hell, that's why I'm not an art critic.
- Speaking of art, though, I also went to the MNAC, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. Not all of the art was particularly amazing as far as I could tell, but I was highly impressed by several of the pieces (enough to have jotted down some of their names and artists -- Vase with Flowers by Francesc Lacoma i Fontanet and some ridiculously awesome sculptures by Pau Gargallo, for instance. Well worth the (discounted to 4 euros) cost of admission.

The plan for today is to hit up the Museu d'Història de Catalunya and work through a few more of the museums over the course of the next week. Should be quite fun.  ¶ 05:50 1 Comments Links to this post

  Feel more real "It's like when you put instant rice pudding mix in a bowl in the microwave and push the button, and you take the cover off when it rings, and there you've got rice pudding. I mean, what happens in between the time when you push the switch and when the microwave rings? You can't tell what's going on under the cover. Maybe the instant rice first turns into macaroni gratin in the darkness when nobody's looking and only then turns back into rice pudding. We think it's only natural to get rice pudding after we put rice pudding mix in the microwave and the bell rings, but to me that's just a presumption. I would be kind of relieved if, every once in a while, after you put rice pudding mix in the microwave and it rang and you opened the top, you got macaroni gratin. I suppose I'd be shocked, of course, but I don't know, I think I'd be kind of relieved too. Or at least I think I wouldn't be so upset, because that would feel, in some ways, a whole lot more real."

- The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami  ¶ 16:54 2 Comments Links to this post