A famosa banda belga Arsenal tem algumas músicas em português que todos por aqui gostam muito. Mas a minha preferida é do novo album Lotuk, chamada Estupendo, que em português só tem o nome.

Fica aqui a dica =)

Pra quem quiser escutar as músicas em português da banda, é so procurar no youtube por ‘arsenal/saudade’, ‘arsenal/longe’, ‘arsenal/egun’ e por ai vai…

It’s a Sleepy Hollow like morning here in Oregon. :] how are you!?

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I’m posting on my iPhone again, so I apologize for all the photos being added at the end of this post!

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I made a Facebook post about my disheartened running, because of the rain, and the new challenges that come with running on a treadmill day in and day out.

I recieved quite a few replies from friends that said running in the rain is quite liberating if its not too cold. So, I decided to put all of my electrical toys away and planned to run 6-7 miles this morning with just myself and my Polar.

I’m fueling with coffee (and a scoop of hot cocoa) and making some gluten-free hot cereal from Bob’s Red Mill. I’m cooking it stove top, adding some flax and cranberries and sweetening with a little maple syrup! I would put maple syrup on everything if I could!

I’ll be running about 3 miles to my yoga studio, then finishing up my run on the way back afterwards.

I’m excited to sport my new Nike compression shirt

Well, I’m finishing up this cereal, it’s pretty good! And I need to get change and vamos!

Have a great morning, bloggies. Oh and photo quality isn’t great, these were all taken from my phone.

Pearl Jam / Backspacer – Como uma resposta para aqueles que sempre acharam os discos do Pearl Jam pós Ten meio experimentalistas, Backspacer é uma continuação direta do disco que os mostrou ao mundo. As músicas são ágeis, chicletes e, ainda assim, sensacionais. Diferente das propostas anteriores, nada de sanfonas, paradas de som no meio da música, bandolins, nada disso. Ele já começa com um rockn´roll basicão em Gonna See my Friend, emendando na ótima Got Some (minha preferida do disco) e a terceira é a música que apresentou o disco novo The Fixer. Se ouviu e gostou, vai gostar demais do novo trabalho do Pearl Jam. Recomendo. E muito!

Arnaldo Antunes / Iê Iê Iê – Sou suspeito pra falar do ex-titã, pois gosto muito do seu trabalho não apenas na esfera musical, mas também nas outras segmentações a que se dedicou. Mesmo assim, Iê Iê Iê me surpreendeu tanto, mas tanto que fica difícil encontrar algum defeito no disco. É como se o Arnaldo tivesse nascido alguns anos antes e começado a sua carreira solo na década de 60, bem no meio da beatlemania, Rita Pavone e Jovem Guarda. O resultado disso é um disco divertidíssimo, com manias e instrumentos da época, com aquele toque da poesia cartunesca popular do vocalista, mas em um ambiente contemporâneo e moderno. Se a mistura funcionou bem? É um dos melhores discos do ano pra mim. E se você não gosta do Arnaldo por causa dos discos anteriores, acho que deveria dar uma chance para este, porque soa como o trabalho mais pop do cantor. Recomendo muito!

Arctic Monkeys / Humbug – O primeiro disco da banda, Whatever People Say I Am, That´s What I´m Not chegou como uma pancada na monotonia com seus acordes ágeis, letras cortantes e a voz nasalada de Alex Turner. Um dos melhores discos que já ouvi na vida e um sucesso de crítica e público. O segundo, Favorite Worst Nightmare, manteve o ritmo, mas não a pegada. O punch inicial havia se desfeito, mas gerando ainda boas músicas e ritmo. O terceiro trabalho do Arctic Monkeys, Humbug, chega a ser monótono. É triste dizer isso, mas é verdade. As músicas são densas demais, triviais e parecem estar dentro de uma introspectividade latente. Curti não.

My Own Digital Detox Week

As a great fan of and subscriber to Adbusters magazine, I’ve become increasingly aware of toll the digital age takes on us in many ways.  Don’t misunderstand me, I love my computer like I love my feet, but that amount of time I spend sitting in front of it, or my work laptop, or my iPhone, or the television, is bordering on obscene.  There was a great article in the spoof-newspaper The Onion a couple of weeks ago titled, “Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles“.  Even though the article is joke as far as the “science” behind it goes, it made me think about the amount of my life spent “staring at glowing rectangles”.

Every year, Adbusters promotes a “Digital Detox Week” (also called “Mental Detox Week”) where they challenge all of us in the digital age to unplug for one week.  This past year, Digital Detox Week was April 20-25.  At the time, I was unwilling, or unable to take a week away from the my iPhone and the television, and with my job, I didn’t think there was any way to get away from my computer any more than in the evenings.  So, I’m making this week, July 19-25, 2009, my own personal Digital Detox Week.

I’ve got one big plus in my favor- I’ll be spending the week at Tybee Island, GA with my family, so I don’t have to worry about normal work duties.  Maybe this is kind of cheating the purpose of Adbusters’ week, but its the only way I think I can pull it off.  If I can make it through this week, I may try it again in a few months during a normal work week, with a few exceptions.

• I’m leaving my laptop at home and am making a pact with myself not to borrow the laptops of anyone in my family (there will be at least three people in my family bringing their computers).
• I will have my iPhone with me in case of emergencies but plan to keep it  safely in a drawer and not look at it- so no Facebook, no Twitter and no compulsively checking my other apps.
• I will watch nothing on television, with the exception of watching movies with the whole family.
• The other big sacrifice for the week will be my iPod.  (Oh my precious, precious iPod!) Yes, that too is, in some ways, toxic to my mental environment.  I will bring it along so my parents and I can listen to podcasts in the car, but for the next 7 days, I will not put earphones on my ears or have the constant background music of my computer.  That’s right, no last.fm, no iTunes.  Also, I usually fall asleep listening to podcasts, but this week, I’m going to try to fall asleep to silence.

Obviously, I don’t think music, or podcasts are bad (I mean, seriously, have you read this blog?).  I do however think that spending some time reconnecting with the sounds of the world around me, especially when I am somewhere as ambient as the ocean shore might do me some good.  My hope is, that by taking myself away from the music for a week, I’ll be able to hear it with ears when I return.

Honestly, I’m not 100% confident that I can pull this off, which is kind of sad. I really am tethered to all of the technology and social media in my life and it will be hard to break the habit of twittering every few hours or checking Facebook or compulsively checking my email.  We’ll just have to see what happens.  I’ll be bringing along a paper journal to write in and I’ll write down my observations of a week without the digital world.  If anything interesting comes out of it, I’ll be sure to share.

Also, don’t fret: I’ve written a new piece, My Top 5 Albums of 2009 (so far) and it will be published incrementally while I’m away.

(Brendan James)

Today was a 3 miler. No biggie-but for a twist I decided to run without my ipod. It wasn’t too bad, actually. In fact, it was kind of nice not blasting out my eardrums while i ran. The only drawback was that I think I ran a little slower because actually being able to hear myself breath made me very aware of how hard I was actually running.

Anyway, I felt pretty good. My back is feeling a little better, but I decided I’d ask one of my coworkers about his chiropractor. Instead, he totally called me out on not stretching. Yes, yes, I admit it. I’m totally bad about stretching. It’s sooo boring! I love yoga, but I don’t like taking 5 minutes to stretch before and after a run. So anyway, before I see a chiropractor, I’m going to start stretching and icing my back every night and see what that does.

He also told me I need to be taking a multivitamin every day. I also never realized how running a lot can actually weaken your immune system. Your body is exerting itself so much every day that it becomes much more susceptible to colds and viruses. That would totally suck to get all the way to October and then get sick.

Basically, I realize I need to take more time to care for my body as I’m exercising it so much. So, that’s another goal.

I’m off to the gym in about a half hour to do my weight lifting routine, so TA TA!

Vou fazer um favor para vocês, ok? Assistam Flight of the Conchords. Pode ser no YouTube ou no torrent, não quero nem saber, você decide. Mas dê uma chance a essa série da HBO.

Olha só: dupla neozelandesa (!!) de digi-folk (!!!) se muda para NY em busca da fama e de um contrato com uma gravadora. Em cada episódio, duas ou três músicas sensacionais sobre questões comuns, tipo preconceito, paquera, música e sexo. O humor é ácido e o sotaque idem.

Ex: Bowie é, obviamente, sobre o próprio (Hey Bowie, do you have one really funky sequined space suit? / Or do you have several ch-changes?), Beautiful Girl faz o elogio que toda moça queria ouvir (You could be a part-time model / But you’d probably still have to keep your normal job) e, o tour de force Robots (Humans are dead) tem um solo binário: 00000010000001000011.

Bom, meus argumentos acabaram. Assista.

I loaded a bunch of new music on my mp3 player last night.

Here’s a list of a few albums that made its way on my list:

• “Whitney Houston”, Whitney Houston
• “Don’t You Fake It”, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
• “Josh Groban” and “Closer”, Josh Groban
• “Chicago Motion Picture Soundtrack”
• “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Soundtrack”
• “Infinity on High”, Fall Out Boy
• “Louder Now”, Taking Back Sunday

Then, there are the ever-popular random songs and bands that aren’t part of full albums:

• “Nutshell”, Alice in Chains
• “Simple and Clean”, Utada Hikaru
• “Smooth Criminal”, Alien Ant Farm
• “Irreplaceable”, Beyonce

There’s LOTS of stuff, almost two hundred songs. (For me and my one-gig player, that is a lot, so all you 30-gig iPod people can shut up.) I’m happy. My favorites at the moment are “Golden” by Fall Out Boy and “Cell Block Tango” from the Chicago soundtrack.

What’s on your player?

Ah, a música pop… De vez em quando, aparece uma canção que faz a gente sorrir pela simplicidade e a proposital falta de compromisso (no bom sentido!). A minha escolhida da vez é I wanna have your babies (clique para baixar, via Idolator), da Natasha Bedingfield.

Qual garota não se identificaria com esse título? Tipo, você vê um cara no supermercado ou no barzinho e pá!, já fica imaginando o nome dos filhos que vai ter com ele e a cor dos olhos das crianças – Trust me it’d scare you/That I picked out the church, or the schools or the names. (veja a letra completa)

Adoro coisas densas, tipo Leonard Cohen e Bright Eyes (exemplos aleatórios), mas como diria Mary Poppins: “Uma colherada de açúcar ajuda a engolir o remédio”. A vida já é complicada demais para não gostar de uma boa canção pop!

5 músicas que estão no repeat

- Amy Winehouse – Rehab

- Gwen Stefani – Wind it up

- Jarvis Cocker – Don’t let him waste your time

- Kaiser Chiefs – Ruby

- Regina Spektor – On the radio