Nice Sounds

I have been busy at work over the last couple of days (yes I do occasionally work).

Anyway, I noticed that I have been listening to the same songs over and over lately. Can't really explain it but they have nice sounds.

Here are a couple of samples, check them out yourselves:

Roscoe - Midlake

Cesaria Evora - Um Pincelada

What do you think?

Are you a Cylon?

Movies, gaming, music, technology, you name your media, yes I am a Geek. So it comes as obvious that I am a Sci-Fi fan extraordinaire.

My latest interest is the new Battlestar Galactica series that is in the 4th (and final) season nowadays. The final episode will air on Mach 14. The show is great and hugely entertaining, that is the least that can be said. However I have few comments about it that I would like to share with you (if any of YOU is ever gonna read a blog like this).

1- Having regular TV show topics incorporated in a Sci-Fi environment do tend to get boring. So Law and Order in space, CSI in space and Desperate Housewives in space is not always appealing to Sci-Fi nerds like us.

2- Sci-Fi is either scientifically futuristic or purely imaginative. Mix and Match both and you would end up with something very ridiculous. Hence, using logic (such as laws of physics and chemistry) in explaining how extraterrestrial 'living' metal would strengthen the metal hull of a space ship would never make any sense. So just DON'T explain it. Sci-Fi is not supposed to be realistic anyhow.

3- Reflecting American Politics in Irak/Afghanistan and against fanatic islamists onto a spacecraft population, 50,000 years in the furture, is extremely pathetic. It might appeal to some American audience but it would never appeal to us the true Sci-Fi fans to whom the show is directed and dedicated (mind you that this series saw the light because of years of lobbying by Sci-Fi fans).

4- Finally, even if the show did not end yet and lots of secrecy is kept around the ending of the series, I do sense that a great American 'happy ending' is in the works. So concepts like living together, accepting the opponent, embracing the ennemy and breeding a Cylon/Human offspring is not the climax that Sci-Fi fans were so eagerly seeking after 4 years of this TV Show (and I hope I am mistaken about that ending).

Now on a more positive note about the show I must say that the cast is purely amazing (especially Tricia Helfer and Edward James Olmos) and so are the story concepts and visual FX. Creativity is at its peak throughout the 4 seasons and honestly, as a consolation, I do not see how you could stretch a show over 4 seasons without incorporating the above mentionned 'nag' points.

I just like to nag sometimes.

KILLZONE

I have been away from this blog for some time but with a valid reason. I confess, I have a Playstation 3 and I do immerse myself in gaming sometimes. Lately, I have been playing KILLZONE 2 on PS3.
I don't claim to be a hardcore gamer but I do enjoy some serious occasional gaming whenever I find time to do so.

I played the original KILLZONE game on PS2 few years back and it was a hell of an experience. So I was waiting for this sequel to get released for the last 2 years and was thrilled to know that the international release date is Feb 27, 2009. Nevertheless I was able to get my hands on a copy early February and was busy shooting an 'alien race' ever since.

I reached 96% of the game within a couple of days and have been struggling through the remaining 4% over the last 5 days. Guess what. I am still stuck. I reached a point in the game where it became ridiculously hard to advance and score any new points. To add to my misery, few gamers have already posted a video walkthrough of the game and playing the last 4% seemed so easy for them. Here I realized the obvious!!! These gamers are in their teens and I am double their age. So I must be really rusty and old as compared to them.

So this weekend I decided to prove the opposite and confirm my youth badge.
It will be a continuous struggle to finish this game. No sleeping, no eating and no bathing this weekend. Hell, no toothbrushing either.

I'll update you Monday!

Monday Update: Ok, it is Monday and I officially declare that I am old and not fit to handle a PS3 controller like a teenager. I give up!! I don't think I'll ever be able to finish the remaining 4% of this game.

"Crème de la Crap"

2009 seems to be heating up with all types of elections happening around. Obama in the US, Iraq, Israel and of course in our beloved Lebanon. Elections in a Middle Eastern country are not your typical elections and so are (not) the contenders.

No matter how hard I try to focus on an ideology or global heading, none of the political parties seems to catch my interest. Elections are coming in June and I sure we will be posting a lot about that topic. Nevertheless, for the time being, I still did not decide which of the TWO sides will win my vote. So unless a 3rd side pops up and joins the 'corruption wagon' I will NOT be voting on June 7.

Needful Things

Probably the 2 funniest people on TV lately have been Jon Stewart (Host of the Daily Show) and Stephen Colbert (Host of the Colbert Report). Anyone who has followed these shows over the last few years would understand how hilarious they could get along with their sarcastic humor (putting aside the occasional repetitiveness).

Once again they appeal mainly to a North American audience and lack a global reach. In some exceptional cases they do cover international stories but their lack of research brings a certain handicap to the show.

Don't get me wrong, this is not an anti North American crusade that I am calling for on this blog. Quite the opposite in fact. What I am suggesting is that there are plenty of juicy 'Global' topics around the planet and someone out there ought to use this to provide a show covering these topics. Why can't we have an 'international Stewart' and an 'international Colbert' that secure a global coverage even if they are copycats. This can not but become a hit show (taking into consideration the hosts are as charismatic and as creative and witty as Stewart and Colbert).

Copycats

It is the month of February and I am catching up with the movies that have been nominated for an Oscar award. I haven't seen any of the 'Best Movie' category nominees but what interested me much were Slumdog Millionaire (aka SM) because of all the hype it has been getting and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (aka CCBB) because of my huge appreciation to David Fincher’s art.

Did not care much about the other 3 nominees. Frost/Nixon, Milk being not so appealing to a non North-American and The Reader being a quasi-remake of previous blender mix dramas.
I forced my wife to share with me the exquisite moments of watching these two gems of 2+ hour duration EACH just to realize that they truly offered nothing new not remotely original. Then a thought hit me! The Oscars nominees are picked by North-Americans who think the world is just the land spreading from the East coast to the West Coast.

Danny Boyle the Director of SB, whose movies I never liked, has offered nothing new in this latest movie. In fact it is a pure Bollywood story like every other single Bollywood story stripped from the musical dance scenes (in fact the ending is a pure tribute to the Bollywood musical dance tradition). As for David Fincher the Director to CCBB, of whom I am a great fan, he offered his story in a pure copy in style of the French movie “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain”. Did not even bother to change the naming style of the movie.

I do not know whether this is considered as culture or not, but North-Americans really need to be exposed to other cultures to say the least. Only then they would realize that all their creativity is a copy of others. Even if in most cases the copy turns out to be better than the original. Regrettably this is not the case for these 2 movies.

Manifesto !!!

Time to get started with this new blog.

As with all blogs the author is not a ’writer’. Not even English is a mother tongue for us. Nevertheless this is the place where we decided to spill all personal thoughts, opinions and feelings on a variety of topics and issues that is faced in our daily life.

We hope you can enjoy it.