Accordions FTW

I was searching the web for pages about one of my current obsessions, Canadian singer/accordionist Wendy McNeill, and came across a very cool blog from Brazil, Pocketmusic (or in the original Portuguese, Música de Bolso). The authors of the blogs are Brazilian filmmakers, and the project is about recording musicians playing their music in unusual places. The first Wendy McNeill video is of her playing her song "Holly O" while walking through a street market in São Paulo. Most of the people in the market are fairly non-plussed about the experience, but there are a few who get into it. It's really charming. The second video was shot on a balcony and is of Wendy playing the song that got me interested in her music when I heard it on CBC Radio 3, "Such a Common Bird".

Understandably, most of the musicians they present are Brazilian, only a few of whom have had international exposure (I've read about Mayra Andrade in fRoots magazine, for example). But occasionally there's someone from the wider world, like the Swedish indie singer/songwriter José Gonzalez. The English language web site is a bit behind the Portuguese language site, but they seem to be eager to get their videos out any way they can, so you can see them in a lot of places, such as their page on blip.tv. Good stuff, very cool.

Posted at 3:53 AM
Link to this entry || No comments (yet) || Trackbacks (0)

Maybe she can find work after November as a doorman

So let me get this straight; John McCain has as one of his closest advisors and potential cabinet members Carly Fiorina?

This is the same Carly Fiorina who helped run Lucent into the ground. Then she went on to bigger and better things and screwed up Hewlett-Packard so badly that she was fired as their CEO. That Carly Fiorina?

Obama's going to win by a bigger landslide than I thought....

Posted at 10:21 PM
Link to this entry || 2 comments || Trackbacks (0)

Switching?

The New York Times reports today that Comcast is testing the ability to slow down the connections of certain heavy users. Part of their plan is to not tell the people they've blacklisted that they're on the blacklist. We've used Comcast's cable modem service for 11 years, and were among the first 50,000 households to do so.

Coincidentally, we received a flyer yesterday from Verizon telling us that FIOS is now available in our neighborhood.

Tempting, very tempting.

Posted at 9:52 PM
Link to this entry || 4 comments || Trackbacks (0)