Archives For October 2007

I saw my first episode of Brazil Next Top Model. Yes, the Top Model fever made it to South America. At first sight, BrNTM had really great aesthetics… so I just had to give it a peek. First, the colors are very ‘hot’ right now, with blacks, magenta and cyan… so it was hard not to be attracted to the brand.

Brazilian super-uber model Gisele Bundchen was to host, but declined – instead BrNTM’s got Fernanda Motta, who gives the show a whole lot different look than it would’ve gotten if Bundchen had accepted. Fernanda’s got dark thicker eyebrows, darker hair – she kinda reminds me of Amanda Peet. Anyone else think so? Check out her pic in the BrNTM’s site (here). She’s got a lower voice, than high-pitched Tyra Banks, who… let’s face it, has given ANTM a woo-ha-ha vibe to the show… so in the end, BrNTM seems a more serious version of America’s…………. Next…. Top…… Model. lol’

Technically, I don’t like BrNTM’s editing… seems a bit choppy at times, and sometimes it lengthens shots and *snores* – yeah, that’s basically it. While I was watching the episode, I couldn’t wait for the scene to end and get it over with. This first photoshoot was a bit boring too, and I guess I must’ve missed this bit in the subtitles, but some of the shots were f-ugly.

Judges have no personality. I’m sorry. I didn’t care much about what they were actually saying because they said the same thing over and over – I’d much rather watch Mrs. Jay talking to Tyra and Nigel… okay, Twiggy falls in the “same thing over and over” category. However, they did seem to be ‘harsher’ in their comments than the American version… kinda like how Janice Dickinson would say something, only LESS FUNNY and LESS ENTERTAINING. They would be better off showing us a report card with a checklist to see if they make it or not.

Contestants… I dunno if it’s because it’s my first time watching, but they or most of them seemed similar to me. I think there are like 2 that I can actually remember how they look. Livia, and Erycka – other than them, I can’t remember their faces or won’t tell them apart. There were like two others that had pretty faces, one of them reminded me of a friend… needs hmm, more variety?

On the subtitling part, this is on Sony – I feel like I missed a lot from the show from the subtitles. I’ve no idea why, but it is what it is. Better subs? Or maybe I’m just not used to hearing much Portuguese, but I’ve seen films in Portuguese and I know there are better subtitles than the ones you’ve been showing me, so don’t go there blaming my ability to read subs, because I know I’m good at it.

Overall, I’ve still to make my mind about this. I will probably give it another shot, but it needs to be less slow, less boring, and please keep the Brazilian Soap Opera vibe to a minimum (yeah, saw the commercial for next week’s episode). And of course, BrNTM in the end could be more talented and more serious, but THAT DOESN’T MAKE GOOD TV VIEWING.

Here is the shortlist:

  • Better editing.
  • Cut boring shots short.
  • Add spice (a.k.a. personality) to the judges, or…
  • Change jury to a simple checklist… check!
  • More physical variety to the contestants.
  • Better subtitles.

Witches!

October 13, 2007 — Leave a comment

Witches is on Boomerang right now! And it’s official, Angelica Houston has to be the most wicked and most horrifying witch there ever was in the history of witches on screen.

I remember when I was a little kiddo and caught a glimpse of this film on Panamericana Television, and I got like major nightmares with that one scene of all the women turning into bald scary looking witches with long fingers. Freaks me out still. I just saw that bit again, and it looks so freaky… even when I have it on mute haha.

I haven’t gotten around to reading the book, which I have researched for the sake of getting a decent-sized picture of WitchAngelica Houston, but no such luck. I remember the film had a happy ending, though the book doesn’t… this caused like a breach between the author and the production – I thought that was worth mentioning.

I miss the good old days of puppets and animatronics.

**EDIT**

I thought it was worth to mention Michelle Pfeiffer in Stardust. She was pretty freaky in that movie too, but doesn’t come close to Angelica Houston. Michelle Pfeiffer plays an evil very very old witch – but Houston plays an evil old and deformed monster… lol – I tell you, freaks me out.

I just discovered Christophe Maé’s music – how cool is his album, Mon Paradis… searching for a less pricey copy of it through amazon ::crosses fingers::

Love singing along to it hahaha… though I do not understand most of it, xD … for sure I’ll be adding a new French category. I’ll be recollecting the albums lyrics because they are all scattered around the web. This is the tracklisting:

  1. On S’Attache
  2. Mon Paradis
  3. Belle Demoiselle
  4. Parce Qu’on Sait Jamais
  5. Ça Fait Mal
  6. Art et La Mannière
  7. C’est Ma Terre
  8. Maman
  9. Ma Vie Est une Larme
  10. Va Voir Ailleurs
  11. Mon Père Spirituel
  12. Spleen

Continue Reading…

A little more blogging!

October 11, 2007 — 2 Comments

October 15th is Blog Day or something… and we are supposed to get talking about the environment that day. Oh yeah, blog day is a day when all people could blog about this one topic… I think it could be interesting, yet I really don’t know what I could talk about relating to the environment, so if you’ve got an idea, let me know.

Also, I re-started watching America’s Next Top Model Cycle 7, which has just began last week in Latin America through Sony Entertainment Television. So people, if you get Sony – tune in every Wednesday at 8pm Chile/7pm Peru Colombia and support CariDee, AJ, Megg, Megan, Michelle and Amanda! Lol’

I’m gonna show-off and say “zomg! I still can’t believe Megan left a message in my MySpace” haha – she’s awesome! Megg also sent a short message, so Rock ON!!!!!!!! ^^

Also began watching The Tudors, season 1, on People and Arts – I missed the episode on Sunday, and the repeat seemed like it was censored because it kept on going to commercials at weird intervals. It was okay, though… I was expecting more. I guess I’m gonna feel like this with The Other Boleyn Girl, which is a shame – it might be a better read, than watching it on screen.

I’ve also been meaning to watch Weeds, I’ve seen the first 2 or 3 episodes, and it was really good. I was looking for the DVD, and it was really cheap, but it turns out season 1 of Weeds is only Fullscreen, instead of Widescreen – and Lionsgate has no plans on re-releasing this as a Widescreen DVD. STUPID LIONSGATE. They just want $$, so people that don’t wanna buy the Fullscreen DVDS have to get the Widescreen Blu-ray discs – now, I haven’t even started buying neither HD or Blu so I won’t start just now.

There, I said it! I so wished I could get to do some more concert photography… Here are some of my latest faves on concert photography!

Continue Reading…

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My thoughts on Deezer

October 4, 2007 — Leave a comment

Okay, last night I had a whole idea of posting a really elaborate post on Deezer, which I have just begun to use. Mainly because I had some complaints about using their upload function… more than anything else. But now, I’m just too lazy to take all that trouble of screen capturing and showing you what bothered me, and alternatives.

My main pet peeve was that I had to open a brand new tab/window to upload and browse at the same time. Maybe I’m just kinda silly, but the first track I tried uploading failed because I went to my “new playlist” while it was uploading hahaha. Oh, silly me~ So yeah, after that, I did the whole tabbing thing, but it made the upload transfer even slower. :(

Now, the upload experience was a pain in itself. Some tracks will go through, and some would begin but never make it… all the time, it seemed like the interface froze, and had to restart again and again. Until I finally called it quits. I successfully uploaded like 6 tracks out of the 12 tracks I had chosen… in like 5 hours or so.

I don’t think their upload function works really well, because it doesn’t let me know at what speed my mp3 is uploading, and at what percentage or how many kbs its uploading. It was really frustrating at times, specially with the freezing of the uploads… Moreover, the multiple uploads didn’t really work. 2/3 of the tracks never make it past the middle of the bar, and it went back to frozen.

I read some comments on it, because I was looking my problem up online, and it seemed I wasn’t the only one with uploading problems. I think there are a lot of users who won’t be sharing their music due to this issue, and I should include myself in!

Up until now, the most satisfactory upload feature has been that of Flickr. I love it. Haha… It lets you upload multiple files, lets you review your files, and then lets you begin your transfer. It shows you a progress bar that is constantly moving, and one by one, they begin their upload. Just simple.

What’s Deezer good for? Sharing playlists, finding music and probably listening to music, though it does take a few tries to get the song play fine because sometimes it takes time buffering, and sometimes it even just plays a second or two and skips to the next. I will still probably use this for a month or two… or maybe a bit more, until it finally gets screwed up like Pandora did. Yes, I am complaining because Pandora is now country restricted. It is funny that of getting digital music country restriction, yet I can purchase stuff off of anywhere on the net.

I should also add my comment on some of the add suggestions for a next release. I read on their forum that people wanted an application for Facebook, as well as other mambo-jambo features, which I think will complicate Deezer. I like Deezer how it is, simple, easy and useful. No users, no “check this user’s taste in music”, no “compare your taste in music” crap. Deezer, KISS! Oh yeah, I know it doesn’t really work on mySpace or probably other sites, but please… can we hmm promote proper Flash embedding?

<div style="top:0px; left:0px; width:180px; height:236px;">
 <object data="https://www.deezer.com/embedded/widget.swf?path=1559967〈=
 en&autoplay=true&id=627896" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
 width="180" height="220">
 <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
 <param name="movie" value="
 https://www.deezer.com/embedded/widget.swf?path=1559967〈=
 en&autoplay=true&id=627896" />
 </object>
 <a href="https://www.deezer.com" target="_blank"
 style="border:none;margin:0;padding:0;">
 <img src="https://www.deezer.com/embedded/footer.jpg" alt="free music"
 width="180" height="16" border="0" style="border:none;margin:0;
 padding:0;" title="free music" />
 </a>
 </div>

Gracias,

Amy’s going!

October 4, 2007 — 1 Comment

To Bjork’s concert… at least, for the time being. I’m still keeping a close watch… you know, in a country like mine- you can never say it’s a done deal until it’s a done deal. hahahaha.

Here’s a picture of my dorkness;

Amy's a dork, but she's going to see Bjork

New Music Player

October 4, 2007 — Leave a comment

Changed the Music Player!

Now I’m using Deezer to see how it goes =D – Right now it features the Soundtrack for the episode Once More with Feeling, from season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! So check it out ^^

Blog upgrade

October 4, 2007 — Leave a comment

WordPress released 2.3 not long ago, and I decided to upgrade upon some nice changes I had read in other blogs. The main one being tags :) – the issue here being that I was using an older layout, so I spent a couple of hours trying to fit my previous layout with a layout that was 2.3 compatible.

Well, I just thought it was kinda nice =) – so, if you see any screwed up pages in here, leave a message so I can take a look at it and fix it.